WhatsApp scams are nothing new, and countless people fall victim to them. It does not take a genius to separate those who know what they are doing from those who don't know what they are doing. Well, an unfortunate software engineer hailing from Gurgaon, India, has fallen victim to such a scam and lost a substantial amount of money, money that could easily change someone's life for the better.

A software engineer in India gave what some would consider life savings to WhatsApp scammers

The unnamed software engineer and his wife both lost a collective amount of 42,31,600 INR, which is equivalent to a little over $51,000. A substantial amount, and sometimes more than enough, to actually change a person's life. All of this took place over WhatsApp and Instagram, and it happened back on March 24th, 2023.

The victim received a message on WhatsApp, claiming that they could earn more money by taking part in a part-time job where they would just have to like videos on YouTube. Seems simple enough, right? However, here's where the red flag comes in. The engineer was asked to invest money, and upon agreeing to that, was added to a Telegram group where the engineer was asked, and he ended up transferring a total of 42,31,600 INR from his account as well as the wife's account. After the scammers received the money, they claimed that the victim had managed to earn over 6.9 million INR in profits, but instead of letting him withdraw that money, they demanded 11,000 INR on top.

The second demand raised some alarms, and the victim decided to get in touch with the police. He then registered an FIR against the alleged WhatsApp scammers. Sadly, we don't know if the victim managed to receive the money back, but everyone needs to keep in mind that these scams are a lot more common than you might believe.

These WhatsApp scams typically start with greetings, and after responding, you get a text with a rather attractive work offer which, on paper, sounds like it is going to make you a lot of money, but the reality is often different, and in most cases, people end up losing a lot of money. Simply put, there is absolutely no way for you to land any job on WhatsApp that claims to make you rich, and therefore, you must always avoid such texts because you are not losing anything by simply ignoring them.

Source: The Time of India