Hyderabad actor tries making money by completing tasks, loses Rs 42 lakh

HYDERABAD: In a new ‘complete the task, earn more money’ scam, a Tollywood actor lost over ₹42 lakh to cyber crooks. The actor from the city, who had acted in a couple of movies, came across an advertisement offering lucrative sums for writing reviews for posh hotels on Google.
The actor cleaned up his own account and also accounts used by his family members to pay the fraudsters.On his complaint, Cyberabad cyber crime police registered a case on Wednesday and took up an investigation.

Police said the 44-year-old actor, who resides at RC Puram, received a WhatsApp message on Aug 19 from a person named Emma, who informed him that her company was looking for people to help increase their Google reviews and offered a lucrative pay for completing tasks. The ‘tasks’ involved writing reviews for posh hotels.
Emma then directed the actor to another person, Alina, on Telegram. Later, he was added to a group where tasks were assigned by the owner, focusing on posting YouTube links for a firm called ‘Media Company’.
After completing each task, he was asked to send screenshots as proof of completion and share them with Emma, who would then transfer the payment to his bank account. After successfully completing three tasks, he was told to contact Emma for further instructions.
Emma asked him to register an account on a website called ‘xbcoin.net’. After registration, he was asked to deposit a prepaid amount for each new task, and he initially transferred ₹5,000 to the bank account given by Emma. The actor received ₹6,800 immediately in return for completing the task.
Later, he was asked to deposit higher amounts for subsequent tasks, and he kept on transferring amounts totalling ₹43 lakh. Each time he completed a task, he was told that there were errors in his work, requiring additional payments to rectify the issues.
In the final leg, when he was asked to pay ₹3.5 lakh to withdraw his funds, he realised that he was conned. He got back ₹18,480 as returns for his investments, leaving him with a loss of ₹42.81 lakh.