Cyber Fraud: Woman lost Rs.94,000 in Pencil Packing Fraud

An earnest attempt to boost family income has left a 33-year-old housewife in Junagadh filled with sorrow after she fell prey to a work-from-home offer and lost Rs. 94,000 to cyber thieves in just one week.

Surprisingly, the cyber scammers, who typically post seductive links on WhatsApp and other social media platforms, placed an ad in the newspaper promising large sums of money for the work of packaging pencil boxes.

Sana Solanki, whose husband works in Africa, called the number listed in the advertising in order to increase her family’s income. Solanki, a native of Nagpur, Maharashtra, understands Gujarati but cannot read it.

When she called, the guy on the other end, who spoke Hindi, introduced himself as an executive with a company called Diamond Pencils. He offered her the job of packing pencils in boxes, saying she could make a lot of money doing it from the comfort of her own home.

He then requested Rs. 2,000 via UPI for the first-time registration. When she called this number, she was requested to pay Rs. 6,500 for registration, which she did.

In just one week from August 14 to August 21, she was made to pay a total of Rs. 94,000 in the name of different charges to get the work.