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Pune man duped of Rs 5.75 lakh in ‘hotel review’ scam via Telegram, police launch probe
After earning an initial Rs 1,600 for hotel reviews, the Pune man was allegedly manipulated into transferring Rs 5.75 lakh into various accounts.
As per the complainant, the funds were traced to a PhonePe account in the name of one Pappu Sachin Yadav. After that, the judge called the cybercrime helpline and was asked to file a complaint with the Mumbai police. (Representational Image)
Cyber fraudsters allegedly duped a man from Pune to the tune of Rs 5.75 lakh in an online hotel reviews scam, said the police Tuesday. The victim lodged the FIR in this case at the Hadapsar police station on Sunday.
As per the FIR, the 38-year-old victim is a resident of Manjari and works with a private company in the city. He said he received a “work from home” offer over Telegram on February 19. It allegedly assured a daily profit of about Rs 3,000 for giving hotel reviews online.
As the victim agreed, he said he initially got a link on a Telegram ID. He said he clicked the link and left online reviews of some hotels, after which Rs 1600 was transferred to his bank account.
According to the cyber fraudsters’ instructions, he allegedly transferred Rs 5.75 lakh across multiple bank accounts via online transactions on February 20 for the hotel review tasks.
The fraudsters allegedly told the victim that his profit had been transferred to his online wallet. When he demanded his money, they allegedly asked him to transfer more amounts and complete a bigger online hotel rating task.
After realising that he had been cheating, the victim approached the police and filed a complaint. The police booked the unidentified accused in this case under sections 318 (4) [cheating], 319 (2) [cheating by personation], 3 (5) [common intention] of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
The police are probing the Telegram IDs and bank accounts used by the accused to commit the fraud.
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