Online Fraud in Gujarat: Jamnagar Couple Falls Prey to Movie Rating Fraud, Lose Over Rs 1 Crore; One Arrested

Ahmedabad, April 2: Fraudsters keep finding new ways to dupe people of their hard earned money. A couple from Gujarat's Jamnagar fell prey to a cyber scam and lost a staggering sum of Rs. 1.12 crore. The couple from Jamnagar fell for the lure of easy money after scamsters baited them with movie-rating assignments on a work-from-home basis.

TOI reported that the incident has been reported to the district's cyber crime police station. They were introduced to the scheme through a Telegram group. Mumbai: Woman Duped of 61,000 After Filling Loan Form on Instagram, Complaint Lodged.

“You can earn by sitting at home in your comfort, only you have to do is to give ratings to the movies,” is the message the couple received on Telegram, which also promised daily earnings ranging from Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 5,000. Online Fraud in Hyderabad: Two Duped of Lakhs by Cyber Fraudsters on Pretext of Providing Escort Services.

They were first told to create an account on a fake website and generate a password. They were then told to join a Telegram group in order to start the rating process. To ensure that they had indeed watched the movies before rating them, the couple was asked to purchase tickets first.

In their first attempt, they were asked to purchase tickets for up to 28 movies which included Hollywood, Bollywood, and South Indian Hindi dubbed films. After watching each movie, the couple had to rate them to earn commissions with the note that the commission varied based on the language.

According to the police, the couple was well-educated and the wife had a good command of the English language. The fraudsters reportedly gained the couple's trust by sending a Rs. 10,000 coupon, followed by a deposit of Rs. 99,000 into the wife's account a few days later.

Their ticket purchases soon reached Rs 5 lakh. When the woman tried to withdraw the earnings, she was told to purchase yet more tickets to earn more. The couple thus got trapped in the scam as they went on spending more and more just to get their own money back.

They approached police after their losses reached Rs 1.12 crore. The police have arrested a suspect from Surat after tracing bank transactions. However, the authorities are still investigating to find the mastermind behind the elaborate scam.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 02, 2023 08:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).