Everyone wants to earn money, and for that, they explore different options. Housewives, often look for different ways to make passive income, and generally lured by investment options that give them a sense of financial independence.
However, scammers are everywhere and often reach out to such people via WhatsApp or Telegram. Some use the names of renowned companies and stockbrokers, leaving no room for doubt for those who have the least understanding of the market.
With their intentions of looting people, scammers target housewives and senior citizens who easily fall victim. They offer different investment options and lure them with promises of high profits.
The ending of such scams is usually similar, with victims losing their capital. Some people get alerted in the beginning, while others understand only after losing all their savings and investments.
Here is one such case where 35-year-old Gitika (name changed) came across a WhatsApp group. The group offered her investment opportunities exclusively for housewives. Gitika, who had been looking for such options for a long time, thought of checking the details.
They claimed to be from Motilal Oswal, one of the renowned stockbrokers of India. The scammer asked her to invest capital in block trading to get handsome returns on investment.
According to Gitika, they asked her to add money to invest in block trades after market hours. Further she added that they guided her to place order for block trades after market hours.
Which she can sell atleast after 24 hours after making profit.
This was a red flag, as no stockbroker provides any kind of trading or investment opportunities after trading hours. There are specific orders like AMO (After Market Orders), but those too come with terms and conditions.
Even in the AMO order execution of trades takes place during market hours only.
However, Gitika couldn’t recognize this and further seeing the brand name of Motilal Oswal, give her more assurance. She then started her investment with ₹10,000. The fake app initially lured her by showing a profit.
To test the app, she withdrew ₹1,000 and was successful in doing so. This further left no doubt in her mind that she was being scammed.
Later, she accumulated more funds and gradually added ₹64,000 in different bank accounts provided by the scammers. When she tried to withdraw ₹48,000, her transaction went under review.
Upon continuous failure, when she reached out to the group admin, he asked her to add more funds to pay taxes on her profit; otherwise, the amount would remain blocked for 45 days.
She found it suspicious and tried to reach out to the customer support number she had. However, she didn’t get any response. She then reached out to our team, where a team member guided her through the process of how she could claim a refund of her capital.
To begin with, Gitika decided to file a case in Cyber Crime!
Gitika saved herself from a bigger loss as she got alerted in the beginning phase. However, a loss is a loss irrespective of the amount. It is therefore important not to make any investment decisions on any random platform.
And if someone claims to be a brand, like in Gitika’s case where the scammers pretended to be from Motilal Oswal, always verify their details and avoid downloading any app from external links.
This will protect you from losses and from eroding your trust in the stock market or any other investment.
