Over 70% of cyber fraud victims are educated & tech-savvy

Indore: A total of 184 complaints of cyber fraud were received by the Indore Cell of state cyber police last year. In the total cases, 120 men and 63 women were duped.

In all 50 FIRs were registered in 2023, which decreased from 90 registered in 2022. The complaints, however, increased from 130 to 184 as compared to last year.

Cyber Cell SP Jitendra Singh said, “Of the 184 complaints received, interestingly, almost 70% of the victims have a technical background and are employed in multinational companies. Despite having well paying jobs, people are falling for part-time job opportunity scams”.

Cybercriminals are using social media platforms to lure unsuspecting people into paying money for completing simple tasks like putting likes on social media videos, movie reviews and ticketing, he said.

Of the 184 complaints received in 2023, 100 were related to a messaging app task job fraud, of these 17 FIRs were registered, which were highest as compared to other type of frauds. In the past one month, 15 complaints have been received — all related to a messaging app job tasking fraud.

SP said, the victims are contacted through the messaging app and asked to pay a registration fee and complete simple tasks such as clicking on links, filling forms, and downloading applications. They are promised to get an amount for each task and a bonus after completion. They also assure the victims that they would refund the registration fee. In several cases the victims get instant cash up to thousands of rupees, which lures them into earning more cash. As they start investing money and get appropriate returns, they are trapped into investing lakhs of rupees and never get anything back.

“In the 184 complaints received last year, the victims have lost crores of rupees. This is only the figure of people, who approached police. There are many, who do not even come out and tell the authorities scared of the social stigma,” said SP Singh.

The accused use ‘borrowed or rented’ bank accounts to receive the duped money. The owners of these accounts are given commission on every transaction. In most of the cases the accused have the online banking details of these accounts and are able to make online transactions and in some cases the owners are asked to withdraw the money from their accounts and hand over the cash to their handlers.

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