Beware: Surge in cyber scams targeting stock investors

Fraudsters approach victims through various online social media platforms like Telegram, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook by advertisements regarding free stock market tips and advice.

Hyderabad: In recent times there has been a significant rise in cybercrimes related to fake stock market trading applications and fake trading advisories wherein gullible victims were losing substantial chunks of their life savings.

Fraudsters approach victims through various online social media platforms like Telegram, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook by advertisements regarding free stock market tips and advice.

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To gain the confidence of the victim, they post the fake screenshots of the profits earned by other clients and initially the fraudsters will also transfer money to the victim’s bank account.

A.V. Ranganath, Joint Commissioner (Crimes & SIT), said “further the fraudsters insist the victims join the premium/VIP group, by stating that they share stock market tips/advice with which they could get more profits”.

Fake profits will be displayed on the dashboard of the website but when the victim tries to withdraw those profits, the withdrawal option will be blocked and the fraudsters further insist to transfer money for unblocking the account by citing different taxes and penalties.

“In most of the cases, working professionals, Charted Accountants, lawyers are getting trapped by the fraudsters. Recently a lawyer saw an advertisement on Facebook and invested an amount of Rs.85 Lakh in a fake trading website and ended up being cheated, ” Ranganath said.

Other victims include an IT employee and CA professional who were added in a WhatsApp group by the fraudsters. Believing the conversations and the profits shown in that group, they invested and lost huge money.

Precautions to be taken:

• Never Trade the Stocks in any unknown Applications other than registered with SEBI.

• Do not Transfer the money to the Individual Bank Accounts as the Stock broker facilitates the transfer of the money through their application only.

• Do not believe in Dubious Returns offered by the Fraudsters.

• Make sure of the Applications while downloading from Google Play store or their own websites.

• Never share your Demat account credentials with unknown persons.

• Don’t believe the fake conversations in unknown groups and blindly invest your hard earned money.