Onlline scams on the rise in Kerala

Gone are the days when online fraudsters used to single lakhs of rupees for a single person at one stretch. New generation dodgers are smart enough to cheat more persons at one go and gain more amount, but without tension. Recent reports show that incidents of online fraud are on the rise in Kerala, especially cities like Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.
 

The fraudsters target group of persons, may be hundreds in number, and con them with a small amount of money. The logic is that people would hardly complain of losing a small amount of money. With the increasing popularity of internet such cases are on the rise in cities, Kozhikode City Police Commissioner J Jayanath said.
 

However, only ten such cases have come to light till now and the victims are not proceeding with the complaint. The latest incident is the one in which more than 250 persons filed a petition against a couple who allegedly coned them in the name of outsourcing work. The clients were asked to register with the company by paying ₹5, 000 for digitalisation of books written by foreign authors. They were offered ₹10, 000 on completion of work. However, they did not even get ₹5000 they had given as a deposit.
 

Police suspect that only some of the victims have come up to file the complaint. The accused was operating from an office at West Hill. However, the police have not been able to trace them. 

Founding CEO of Startup Village in Kochi, Sijo Kuruvila said the people are not using available resources effectively. "Whenever you hear about a new company, just go through Google to check whether it is trustworthy or not. Reference check is a crucial factor in any kind of media. It is for the people to be on alert, especially when a company is demanding payment prior to assigning work towards registration fee," he said.

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