Work From Home - Cyber Crime Scams: Are you a Victim?

The Work From Home concept is very attractive for most people, as the advertisements offer huge sums of money for a few hours of simple work. But would you really be paid well for doing nothing much! If it is too good to be true, then it probably is not true!

The modus operandi is usually attractive advertisements on websites, public places and social media. The application procedure involves filling up a form with all your details and you have to purchase a welcome kit. If you refer more people then you get paid a percentage for each reference that materializes, so basically you make other people also fall prey to the scam.

The scope of work is mostly like:

- Envelope stuffing (mailing programs)

- Assembly work

- Gifting programs

- Email processing

- Rebate processing

- Repackaging

- Payment processing

- Jobs that ask for money to hire you

- Businesses that don’t have an evident product or service.

If you are a victim of a work from home scam, then cyber laws has recourse for you.If the scammers use your personal data to make fake profiles and commit any crimes, then they are liable under Section 66-D for Cyber Personation, which is punishable with imprisonment upto 3 years and a fine.

The scammers are liable for Identity Theft under Section 66-C if they use your password or any other unique identification feature.

The scammers are liable under Section 43 of the Information Technology Act makes unauthorized access an offence, and Section 43 A makes a Company liable for breach of privacy and confidentiality by payment of compensation to the victim for failure to protect data.

The data that you provide to the scammers is priceless. Along with your personal information they have your credit card data too and misuse the same. When you purchase the welcome kit you may not be directed to a safe payment portal. This renders you vulnerable credit card frauds. And your personal data is sold to marketing companies without your consent.

A leading case of this type of scam was when the Cyber Crime Cell of Crime Branch, C.I.D., Mumbai Police arrested a person by name Sripathi Guruprasanna Raj, aged 52 years old, who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Sohonet India Private Ltd., a company based in Chennai. Many complainants based in Mumbai had complained to the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, that the said company has duped them each for Rs. 4,000/- and Rs. 6,000/- by promising them with monthly income of Rs. 15,000/-.

Cyber Crime Cell of Crime Branch, C.I.D., Mumbai Police have arrested a person by name Sripathi Guruprasanna Raj, aged 52 yrs who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Sohonet India Private Ltd., a company based in Chennai. Many complainants based in Mumbai had complained to the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, that the said company has duped them each for Rs. 4,000/- and Rs. 6,000/- by promising them with monthly income of Rs. 15,000/-. The company had through its website having URL http://www.sohonetindia.com and through various attractive advertisements in the news papers as well as by holding seminars in five star hotels, in various metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore etc. had lured the various computer literate people with attractive schemes named Instant Treasure Pack (ITP) and Green Channel The company then asked the interested people to register with their company for which they charged the registration fees of Rs. 4,000/- which was later increased to Rs. 6,000/-. The company CMD, Mr. Raj promised the people so registered that they would be provided with the data conversion job which would enable them to earn Rs. 15,000/- per month. The company then collected huge amount from the gullible computer users. Some of the users were provided with the job work whereas others were not even provided the job work (data conversion job) assured to them. The users who worked hard and completed the assignments did not receive any payment for the same, and when they tried getting in touch with the company, they received no response.

Work from Home scams are aplenty in India and scammers take advantage of the high rate of unemployment in India along with the house wife system which is popular in India.

A victim must make a complaint in the prescribed format to the Adjudicating Officer, DIT, Information Technology Act, 2000.

Advocate Puneet Bhasin,

Cyber Law Expert, Cyberjure Legal Consulting

contact.cyberjure@gmail.com