Digital frauds has increased from the last few years and among those scams, Telegram scams related to investment are significantly.
Among the digital scams reported this year, around 62,000 are related to investment frauds alone which amounts to INR 220 crores.
How Scammers Reach Out to Investors?
These telegram fraud starts from Social Media where people get influenced by seeing profit screenshots.
People clicking on such ads, believes those profits to be real and follow the path where they end up joining the Premium Telegram or WhatsApp Group.
These groups are run by scammers & unregistered entities who provide tips or clone trading app links where the risk is not only limited to loss in trading but the loss of principal amount too.
How an Investor Lost More than ₹5 Lakh in Telegram Scam?
One such instance is here where Mr. Akhilesh (name changed), joined one Premium Group on Telegram on April 02, 2024. The group admin first provided tips that he used to trade using his Demat Account.
Initially, there were mixed days where the person made some profit and loss.
Later the group admin shared one link which redirected him to download one trading app. Not having an idea of Clone Trading app, Akhilesh downloaded it to continue trade.
Started with the capital of ₹10k he gradually added ₹5 lakh 76 thousand in total. He did one mistake that he never tried to withdrew his profit or capital. Then after May 20, when he tried to withdraw the sum, the transaction declined.
There he got a clue that he had been scammed.
He approached to file a cyber crime complaint. As per the updated status of his complaint, the amount in the scammer’s bank account is on hold but Akhilesh is still not able to recover his losses.
One More Investor Lost his Hard Earned Money in Telegram Fraud!
Another similar case where Mr. Anurag (name changed), joined a telegram group to get tips and quick ways to make profit. And like the above case he too was made to download the trading app where the scammer claimed to trade in shares at the price less than the market price.
In short, he downloaded clone trading app and the scammer lure him by displaying fake profits every day.
Then, the scammer tried to make a lot of money and asked him to apply for IPO worth ₹3,00,000.
Due to shortage of fund Anurag denied but on this, scammer told him to avail a loan from him. On this Anurag added ₹1,00,000 and scammer showed him fake currency by changing currency value in the clone app.
Later, the scammer told to Anurag that he had won IPO the value of which is ₹10,00,000 now. Anurag thought of withdrawing the amount but on that the scammer asked him first to deposit the loan amount.
Anurag insisted to cut loan amount from his profit and let him withdrew rest of the amount. But he denied. Even the fake app didn’t allow Anurag to withdrew his principal amount.
And in this way one more person got scammed.
How to Protect Yourself from Telegram Tips Frauds?
These cases are limitless and the only way to stop them is to be alert and more cautious before clicking on any unknown link. And even if you trade using authorized links it is good to know more about SEBI rules & regulations.
It is important to consider above points and follow them strictly. The reason is that in \WhatsApp & Telegram Scams the only option left is to report a case to Cyber Crime. But does cyber crime refund money?
Well, there are chances which depends on how quickly you report telegram scammer, do you have enough proofs, and on rules & policies.
It is therefore better to stay alert and avoid running behind quick profits!
