Engineer duped of Rs 95 lakh in online job fraud

Rajkot: A 33-year-old engineer from Junagadh was duped of Rs 95 lakh in a fraudulent online work scheme where the conmen promised him handsome commissions for promoting property listings on the company's website.
The victim Parth Ardeshna, who works from home, received a message on Jan 22 from an unknown WhatsApp number. The sender introduced herself as Shruti, an employee of a company named Rent, which claimed to deal in online property rentals and sales through its global network
Initially, he received high return. For instance, when he deposited Rs 8,000, he received around Rs 14,000 in return. Similar gains followed when he deposited Rs 31,000 and Rs 50,000, receiving Rs 41,000 and over Rs 70,000 respectively.
Lured by the increasing returns, Ardeshna continued transferring money to various bank accounts and UPI IDs, believing he was investing in a legitimate commission-based model. However, as the scheme progressed, he was asked to pay multiple charges under various pretexts such as withdrawal fees, VIP secure gateway, credit point validation, foreign transaction fees and case handling fees.
In total, Parth deposited Rs 96.73 lakh in various accounts given by the fraudsters. In return, they only refunded Rs 1.25 lakh to gain his trust.
Realizing that he had been cheated, Ardeshna approached the Junagadh Cybercrime police and lodged a complaint.