Noida man loses Rs 20 lakh in ‘hotel rating on Google Maps scam’, alleges receiving death threats

A Greater Noida resident fell victim to a work-from-home scam involving rating hotels on Google Maps. The victim, Sandeep Kumar is a resident of Chi-1 sector, Greater Noida was scammed of Rs 20.54 lakhs in January this year, reports news agency PTI.
An FIR has been filed at the Cyber Crime police station in Noida Sector 36 against an unidentified accused earlier this week.“The FIR has been registered under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation), and provisions of the Information Technology Act,” the local police said.

How did the resident fall for the online fraud?

In his complaint to the police, Kumar said that he received a text on his WhatsApp number offering a work-from-home job that required him to rate hotels on Google Maps. In return, he will be rewarded with money.
Kumar replied to the text and was eventually added to a Telegram group which already had about 100 members. He told the police that he started performing the rating tasks which soon included investment activities.
“I started rating the hotels etc. With these tasks, there were some investment tasks too where I invested Rs 50,000 first, but I couldn’t withdraw the money from the website,” Kumar said. When attempted to withdraw money, he was asked to pay an additional Rs 5 lakh as tax, he further added. This way, he ended up investing Rs 20,54,464.
“They asked me to pay Rs 5 lakh more as tax to their account, where I got to know that I have been a victim of financial fraud. I am not able to withdraw my approximately Rs 20,54,464 invested money,” Kumar said in his statement to the police.

Kumar claims of getting “death threats’ from fraudsters

The victim alleged that he has been receiving “death threats” from the fraudsters via Telegram and phone calls.
“I am getting death threats from these people on Telegram as well as on calls to defreeze the accounts,” he said.