Pamphlet idea lands youth in jail

When you stand at the bus stop or walk on the roads, you will invariably end up getting a handful of pamphlets. One of the pamphlet reads: "Want to earn from home? Just spend an hour and make Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 every month. Call this number for registration." Sounds familiar? OK.

Anybody's first reaction to such reaction would be to immediately thrash the pamphlet. But a resident of Krishna district chose to make use of the opportunity. Meet Vinod Kumar, a Class X dropout who got a brilliant money making idea from one such pamphlet. Our boy did not use pamphlets or wall posters. He merely used the free SMS facility. Vinod sent 100 SMSes to unemployed persons with the message: "Unemployed? Know basic operation of computer? Then you have a job! Call for details."
Initially, the plan response wasn't much as the registration fee was over Rs 2500. So Vinod decided to cut down the amount to Rs 1200. And Yippee, he had hit the jackpot!

It's a known fact that there's no dearth of unemployed people in out country. Out of choice or by force, many youngsters remain jobless. Thus when this offer came, it is learnt that as many as 300 youngsters registered themselves by paying the registration fee. And as with all fraudsters, Vinod too switched off his cell soon as he collected enough money. Interestingly, nobody even thought of lodging a police complaint as Rs 1200 was a negligible amount. They simply cursed Vinod for a couple of days and forgot all about losing their money.

On the other hand, in a perfect Telugu movie style conman Vinod Kumar became Jalsa Rayudu with a new bike and 3 cellphones. The greed of money is such that it makes you repeat your mistakes. Same happened with Vinod too, who was impressed with himself about the successful fraud deal. Vinod decided to change the location. But this time, he increased the registration fee. His new targets were young girls aspiring to become software professionals. Vinod promised them lucrative jobs in big MNCs. This time too, Vinod decided to play the same trick by switching off his phones. However, many duped girls brought this to the notice of Cyber Crime police, who swung into action. The police successfully nabbed the culprit and seized his bike, several mobile handsets and the remaining cash amount of Rs 1,55,000. Vinod, who had led a luxurious life by cheating people was put behind bars.

Spam mails, SMSes and pamphlets to lure people into investing has become a rampant problem now. The next time you decide to give it a try, think twice and do a background check as there are some genuine ones too.

- Siva@sakshipost