A 25-year-old woman from Mangaluru allegedly lost Rs 9.33 lakh after falling victim to a work-from-home job scam, with the fraudsters initially promising her easy earnings through online data entry tasks.
The incident came to light after the woman approached the CEN Crime Police Station and filed a complaint against unidentified individuals.
According to the complaint, the woman received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number on September 11. The sender allegedly claimed to be an HR representative of a company called Megha Company and offered her a work-from-home data entry position.
She was later directed to a Telegram group, where she was told that she could earn Rs 200 by completing 20 tasks each day.
The woman completed the assigned tasks on the first day and received Rs 200, which reportedly made the job offer appear genuine.
However, the situation changed the following day when she was given 13 tasks that she could not complete. She was subsequently contacted by another Telegram user who identified himself as Amarjeet Kumar. He allegedly convinced her to continue with the process.
The woman initially transferred Rs 3,000 through UPI. When she later asked for the money to be returned after being unable to complete the tasks, the alleged fraudsters reportedly told her that she needed to make additional payments to different bank accounts to withdraw her money.
Following their instructions, she made several transactions between September 12 and September 17. In total, she allegedly transferred Rs 9,33,866.
She later realised that she had been targeted in an online job scam and reported the matter to the CEN Crime Police Station. Police are investigating the complaint.
The incident highlights how scammers can use small initial payments to build trust before asking victims to transfer increasingly larger amounts under the pretext of unlocking earnings or withdrawing funds.
