Woman loses Rs 6 lakh after fake job interview on Skype

Online fraudsters laid an elaborate trap to con a 51-year-old woman seeking a high-profile job out of Rs 6 lakh.

Three scamsters posed as HR executives of a private airline and conducted a job interview on Skype. They got the woman to transfer Rs 6.06 lakh in multiple transactions, saying the money was a "security deposit". She waited for months for the employment offer, and approached the police after the scamsters stopped responding to her.

Whitefield CEN police have registered a case of cheating under the relevant sections of the IPC and the Information Technology Act based on a complaint from the woman who lives in Bhattarahalli. A manhunt has been launched for the scamsters.

The woman had been looking for a senior position in an airline and had registered herself on jobs sites in November 2020 by paying Rs 6,899 as registration fees.

On November 24, she received a phone call from an unknown number. The caller introduced himself as Rohith Raghavan and offered a job in an airline. He also scheduled a job interview on Skype the next day. The "interview" lasted 30 minutes and was conducted by three men who gave their names as Banerjee, Agarwal and Satish Kulakarni.

Raghavan asked the woman to pay Rs 5 lakh as security deposit but demanded more money later. Eventually, she paid them Rs 6.06 lakh until December 11, 2020. But she didn't hear from them afterwards. She waited until February before going to the police.