Hyderabad: Jobless youth script scams

Hyderabad: Online scams by unemployed and educated graduates in the city have grabbed the headlines recently. The platforms include e-commerce sites like OLX and Quikr, matrimonial sites, and job portals.

Online scamsters come up with new ways to con the public, said a senior police official of the Hyderabad cyber cell. The digital menace is spearheaded mainly by youngsters, mostly in their early 20s, with the motive to make quick bucks. In fact, most of them are educated. They create  a fake website and a bogus firm and lure fresh graduates with fake job offers, the police said.

In July, the Gopalapuram police busted a fake job racket and arrested an MBA graduate, M. Babu Rao, an HR professional with Sunshine Technology in Seethaphalmandi. “He updated his details on Just Dial and cheated unemployed youths by promising them jobs in government and private sectors,” said Ch. Sridhar, Gopalapuram police inspector.

As educated youths are resorting to online fraud, more cases are registered against th-em. “This year, we booked around 50 cases. There are several cases where educated youths are involved in online cheating,” said P. Ravi Kiran, inspector of cybercrimes. “They just have to shell out around '5,000 to get 3,000 resumes from job portals like Naukri.com and Shine.com. They set up a small call centre and sort out the resumes based on qualification,” added Mr Kiran. 

K.C.S. Raghuvir, additional DCP, cybercrimes, said that online matrimonial  frauds are also taken up by educated youths. “The victims are divorcees, widows or unmarried women in their 30s and 40s. The scamsters pretend to be younger than the victims and claim to be MNC employees or NRIs.”
“They give emotional support to the victims and send gifts to impress them.

Single women, who do not have elders to verify the background, may fall in the trap,” said an investigator of matrimony fraud cases from cybercrimes, Cyberabad.

In some cases, women also initiate the fraud. Y. Srilatha from Bangalore trapped and conned men and made them transfer more than '1.5 lakh within a week.

“She claimed that she has a property in Bangalore worth about '30 crore and asked their help to clear some family feud over the property,” said CCS, Avinash Mohanty, DCP, detective department.