Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath warns of online scams

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Zroda Co-Founder and CEO Nithin Kamath shared details of an online investment scam to create awareness and sounded the warning that “everyone is a target.” He wrote on his Twitter how someone he knew recently got scammed and lost over $5 lahks to the scammers.

“It started with a response to a part-time job offer on WhatsApp,” Kamath wrote on Twitter. According to the tweet, the first task that was given was to post fake reviews of resorts and restaurants in random places like Peru which awarded £30,000 as a reward.

Then the scammers added the victim to the Telegram group and set another task to trade on a fake crypto platform. The victims were allowed to withdraw the profits gained from the trade without having to invest any real money.

Incidentally, this was not Bitcoin or Ethereum, but random crypto tokens whose prices could easily be manipulated by fraudsters. The group was now required to transfer real money to generate higher returns. Others in the group who claimed to have transferred prompted Siddiqui to do so as well, Kamath noted.

Victim was informed of minimum trades when trying to withdraw funds. After investing a large sum and with the fear of losing, the victim continued trading and his deposit on the platform increased to ₹5 lakh. “The platform offered a loan when the person said there was no more money to add,” Kamath’s tweet said. After the victims realized it was a scam, they called the police for help.

“The account looked like a real crypto account, with account balance, ledger, profit and loss, etc., but it was all fake; everything in it was manipulated, including the telegram group. Transactions were also manipulated,” Kamath said in his tweet. Cryptocurrency prices to generate profits and sow greed in the beginning.”

Warning everyone about the scam, Kamath added, “The important thing to remember is that there is no easy way to make a lot of money quickly.”

Zerodha recently announced a joint venture with wealth management platform Smallcase To launch an asset management company with a focus on building low cost passive mutual fund products.