Pune techie misplaced Rs 17.6 lakh to love and earn rip-off: What it’s and the way to keep protected

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Pune techie misplaced Rs 17.6 lakh to love and earn rip-off: What it’s and the way to keep protected

In a current incident, a 34-year-old tech skilled from Pune incurred a lack of Rs 17.6 lakh between December 1 and 6, succumbing to cyber criminals who exploited his curiosity in incomes by on-line duties, equivalent to liking movies. The fraudulent exercise commenced on December 1, when the sufferer got here throughout a part-time job commercial on social media and subsequently reached out to the scammers.
What’s a like and earn rip-off?
A “like and earn” rip-off is a fraudulent scheme that lures folks into partaking with social media content material (normally on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok) with the promise of monetary rewards in change for likes, shares, feedback, or subscriptions.These scams, also referred to as engagement scams, are available varied types, however all of them share the identical purpose: to use your need for simple cash by manipulating your on-line exercise.
This is how these scams usually work:
Preliminary Lure: Scammers could unfold the phrase by pretend accounts, paid ads, or direct messages. They provide engaging guarantees of incomes fast money by merely liking, sharing, or subscribing to particular movies, channels, or profiles. The rewards could seem unrealistic, like incomes a whole lot of {dollars} for just a few clicks.
Constructing Belief: To seem respectable, scammers could create pretend web sites or on-line communities with fabricated success tales and testimonials. They could even manipulate engagement metrics on social media platforms to make the content material seem widespread and reliable.
The Catch: Nevertheless, when you have interaction with the content material, you encounter the rip-off’s true nature. This could contain varied ways:
* Hidden Charges: You would possibly must pay upfront charges or full extra duties earlier than accessing the promised rewards. These charges is perhaps disguised as registration charges, verification prices, or “funding funds.”
* Unrealistic Necessities: Even after the preliminary engagement, the promised rewards would possibly stay unattainable. The scammers could hold setting increased engagement thresholds or introduce advanced withdrawal situations, making it virtually unattainable to earn any cash.
* Knowledge Theft: Participating with the content material or interacting with the rip-off web site might expose your private info and even infect your machine with malware.
Listed here are some tricks to keep away from “like and earn” scams:
* Be sceptical of affords that appear too good to be true.
* By no means pay any upfront charges to take part in such schemes.
* Do your analysis on the platform, channel, or profile earlier than partaking.
* Be cautious of faux testimonials and inflated engagement metrics.
* By no means present private info or click on on suspicious hyperlinks.
* Report suspicious exercise to the social media platform you are utilizing.