Survey Finds 'Work From Home' & 'Lottery Deals' As The Major Online Scams Of India

A new multi-market survey has reported that the top three online scams in India are work from home, lottery scams and fake bank e-mail scam. Despite the growing awareness on these issues, new online scams are being reported every day.

A study by the Norway-based Telenor Group on “Internet Scams”has revealed that scammers are finding new innovative ways to infiltrate the Indian Internet accessibility, reported NDTV.

Under “work from home”, users are often fooled into paying people online to help them start a business, or they are duped into completing work on their own computers but never receive payments.

A large number of participants had been victim of lottery scam emails, where users are asked to pay a processing fee, to win a large sum of money and 17 per cent had been victim to fraud from scammers pretending to be representatives of their banks to acquire personal information and funds.

The study assessed the impact of scams on 400 Internet users aged between 18 and 65 from India, Singapore Thailand and Malaysia. Alarmingly the average loss per person in India has been Rs 819,000, which is way more than the regional average.

According to NDTV, Half of Internet users surveyed in India feel that responsibility to protect people online is with the government while nearly 60 percent feel the responsibility lies with the website.

A jail term for scammers is the best preventative measure to avoid an increasing online threat, they added.

However, overall more than 80 percent of respondents feel it is the responsibility of each individual to ensure they’re safe online.

The Logical Indian urges the internet users of India to stay away from any suspicious activities on Internet. The government should should come forward to help fighting this major racket of Internet scammers.