Now a days a very big scam is going on, internet is filled with lots of such complaints where innocent victims are losing money from 2 Thousand to 1.33 Crores on the name of Prepaid Task Scam on Telegram.  

Prepaid task scams are a type of scam that involves tricking victims into paying for a fake job opportunity on Telegram. These scams often target vulnerable individuals who are in need of money and are looking for work.

Here's how the scam typically works:

The victim receives a message from someone claiming to be a recruiter for a company on Whatsapp from an International or Indian Number. The message will offer a work-from-home opportunity that involves completing simple tasks, such as liking youtube videos, following an Instagram Profile, Rating a Hotel, Rating a Holiday destination, Investing in crypto, Rating an App  or Rating a movie.

The victim is then asked to join a Telegram Group and perform similar easy tasks to earn money along with other 20 to 500 members (Most of these members are dummy members). Initially victims are paid for the easy looking free tasks to gain trust. Then scammers will ask victims to perform a prepaid task / merchant task / welfare task / deluxe task, without that free tasks can’t be performed and earning stops. Initially they ask you to invest only INR 1000 with the promise of 30 to 40% return of your investment.

Once a victims pay INR 1000 or 2000 in initial phase he/she gets the returns as promised by the scammers. This way cycle of tasks are being performed and when Victims pay a huge amount as an investment they start tricking the victims and asking more money to return previously invested money on the name of Repair Task, Tax, TDS, Payment Handling Charges etc. Victims usually get in trap and pay more money just to recover the earlier invested money, this way most of the victims end up paying a huge sum to the scammers.

Once the victim has sent all the money, the scammer disappears, and the victim never receives any actual payment.

These types of scams can be difficult to track and prosecute, as the scammers use fake identities on Telegram / WhatsApp, mobile numbers procured with fake documents, fake Bank accounts to receive the payments from victims and are located in different countries.

One of the main reason why victims fall prey is that these scammers are using names of all Big Brands like goibibo, TCS, Infosys, Nasdaq, Tripadvisor, Eros Now, Balaji Telefilm, Trivago, Airbnb, Omnicron Group, Google, HCL, Netflix etc. Few to many cases they have produced fake identity cards as well to convince the victims.

Role of Telegram Messenger

Telegram has become a popular platform for scammers due to its ease of use, anonymity, and features that allow users to create and join large groups quickly and easily. Here are a few reasons why scammers find Telegram to be an attractive platform:

Anonymity: Telegram does not require users to provide their real name or phone number to create an account. This makes it easy for scammers to create fake profiles and join groups without being easily traced. Can change username multiple times.

Group Chats: Telegram allows users to create and join groups with up to 200,000 members, which makes it easy for scammers to reach a large audience quickly. They can join groups related to a particular topic or interest and start messaging other users with scams or phishing attempts.

Private Groups : Scammers create private groups to perform such scam activity, they add victims to those private groups where already many of their bots / fake members are added and send messages in regular interval with the fake earning proofs to the group to convince the victim to perform such prepaid tasks. These groups cannot be joined without their invitation and after a victim paid a huge amount they are removed from the group.

Once you are removed you can’t get any information of that group i.e.; previously sent messages, group member details etc.

Delete Chat : Scammers can delete chats history for both the sides so it makes it so convenient that the victims cannot even share the chats as an evidence when he/she realised that they are scammed. As soon as they scam a victim they delete both side chats.  

Bot Integration: Telegram allows users to create and integrate bots into their chats and groups, which can automate tasks and provide quick access to information or services. Scammers can use bots to send spam messages or phishing attempts to a large number of users without being detected.

Payment System: Telegram's built-in payment system makes it easy for scammers to collect payments from their victims. They can create fake shops or services and ask for payments using Telegram's payment system.

Overall, while Telegram provides a lot of useful features for legitimate users, its anonymity, large group chats, and easy bot integration make it an attractive platform for scammers to use.  

Telegram Prepaid Task Scam has increased drastically every day we get news articles about the financial losses of the victims. Many have suicide after losing the money, life of many have been spoiled after getting into the trap. As per the reports scammers are operating from Dubai and India. Also all the money involved in this scam is being send to other country in the form of Crypto Currency. This has become one of the biggest money laundering scam of India and TELEGRAM is paying a vital role to support the scammers by providing such platform.

We request our government to take this matter seriously as the victims are not getting any kind of help from Investigating agencies to recover the money from the scammers. Also no major arrests so far. We straight forward demand for the following things from our government against this Cyber Terrorism. 

Ban Telegram - We have found that Telegram is not providing required data to the law enforcements and allowing these scammers despite many of the victims have written to their grievance officer. These apps should be fined heavily / banned for providing such platform to the scammers to run such illegal activities which is not less than Terrorism. Remember India is a biggest market for Telegram.

Action on Banks – Majorly Yes Bank and ICICI Bank Current accounts are being used by the scammers, these banks are not responding timely to the customers and law enforcements, They have a standard reply that these accounts are freeze / lien marked and no money recovered, also they don’t have any information of account owners / not contactable / FAKE Accounts. How come huge money is being rotated from the those accounts and banks are not aware ?  It can’t be done without involvement of Bank Employees. This matter should be investigated and proper action should be taken against these banks and victims should be compensated.

Special Task Force By the Central Government – Special Task force should be formed by the central government. Victims are not getting much support from local police / banks. Special task force should take over all these related cases, study the nature of fraud and take action to find the culprits and punish them and recover the money.

Awareness Campaign – As government spends lots of money in promoting Digital India, it is high time to invest equal amount in advertisement against such cybercrime all over the internet. Awareness Campaigns and Education against such cybercrime is required to the grassroots level. If we are proud that Digital India has reached to the villages of India, awareness campaigns are equally important to save hard earned money.

At last I would just add that innocent people are losing hard earned money, going through mental trauma, heavy debts and some have ended their life.

WE ALL NEED JUSTICE.  STOP THIS CYBER TERRORISM. STOP MONEY LAUNDERING SCAM.

Type of Telegram Scams

01. Movie Rating Scam

02. Hotel Ratings Scam

03. Youtube Like & Earn Money Scam

04. Invest In Crypto Scam