Hyderabad woman loses Rs. 1.35 lakh in hotel review job fraud

Hyderabad: In yet another incident of cyber scam, a woman from Hyderabad reportedly lost over Rs. 1.35 lakh in a part-time job scam involving hotel reviews on Google Maps.

In her complaint, the 33-year-old woman said she received a WhatsApp message from an unidentified person who claimed to represent a prominent hospitality company in India. The caller offered her a work-from-home job which involved rating hotels online and she would receive a compensation of Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 8,000 daily for the number of completed tasks.

The victim accepted the opportunity assuming it to be a legitimate offer. The scammers asked her to complete the initial review task and send a screenshot to them and she received a payment of Rs. 203 for rating a hotel. Later, the scammers persuaded her to continue doing more review tasks and she was later asked to make deposits to unlock ‘prepayment tasks’ which would give her more commission.

To convince her further, the scammers added her number to a ‘VIP’ group on a messaging platform which was filled with screenshots of high earnings. The group postings made her believe the job was genuine and she started transferring money to various bank accounts as instructed by the fraudsters.

The victim got busy with the tasks and was hopeful that she would get a higher commission. Over time, she not only lost her money but also borrowed money from family members to continue the given tasks. After losing over Rs. 1.35 lakh, the victim realised that she had fallen prey to a scam and approached the cybercrime wing of the Hyderabad police to file a complaint.