Professionals falling prey to stock market trading frauds; Jt CP Ranganath explains don’ts

HYDERABAD: In recent times, there is a significant rise in the cyber crimes related to the fake stock market trading applications and fake trading advisories in which gullible people are losing huge amount of money.

The modus operandi used by the fraudsters is that they approach their targets through various online social media platforms like Telegram, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook by releasing advertisements regarding free stock market tips and advices.

In order to gain the confidence of the targeted persons, they post fake screenshots of the profits earned by other clients.

Initially the fraudsters will transfer money to the targeted person’s bank account. Further they insist the victims to join premium/VIP group, by stating that they share stock market tips/advice with which they could get more profits.

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By then, the target would have already fallen prey and turned into a victim without knowing the fact.

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 more money for unblocking the account by citing different taxes and penalties.

In most of the cases, working professionals like charted accountants and advocates are getting trapped by the fraudsters. Recently, an advocate saw an advertisement in Facebook and invested an amount of a whopping Rs.85 lakhs in a fake trading website and got victimised to this fraud.

Another victim who is an IT employee was added in a Whatsapp group by the fraudsters. Believing the conversations and the profits shown in that group, he had invested and lost an amount of Rs.55 lakhs. Another victim, who is a CA by training, was trapped by the fraudsters with a fake trading website and lured him to shell out an amount of Rs.91 lakhs.

A V Ranganath, Joint Commissioner of Police, Crimes and SIT, explained the precautionary be taken to avoid falling prey to such incidents.

Precautions to be Taken:

• Never trade the stocks in any unknown applications other than those registered with the market regulator SEBI.
• Do not transfer any 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 authenticity of the applications, while downloading from Google Playstore 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.

If these precautions are taken, chances of falling prey to the fraudsters can largely be avoided.