Lucknow, Sep 24 (IANS): The UP Police has warned people against job offers being put out on social media.

This advisory comes after more than 50 cases have been reported of click farm fraud and many of them still going unreported.

The cyber cell of UP Police aims to make netizens aware of the scam and warn them against failing in the lucrative job trap.

According to rough estimates, city residents have thus far lost Rs 17 crore to such scamsters.

In a click farm, people are hired for giving good online ratings to commodities and services. In a way, it is also a type of job that is being exploited by the scammers.

According to police, the scammers contact users (on Telegram and WhatsApp) saying that they are looking for a part-timer who can earn up to Rs 5,000 per day.

"After users accept the offer, they are added to a Telegram channel which is operated by the ‘task manager’, who assigns them the ‘work’. Then, the victims are asked to hit the ‘Like' button on some YouTube videos and send a screenshot to the ‘manager.’

As users keep on liking the YouTube videos, the accumulated earnings are shown on the scammer’s ‘job app’. These earnings are only for display and the scammer does not send any money to the user.

Instead, the cybercriminals will ask users to ‘invest’ some token amount (for example, Rs 5,000) to get their accumulated earnings,” said a senior official.

“Once the money is transferred, scammers block the users on WhatsApp and Telegram,” he said.

It has also surfaced that users are directed to send their bank account details to get the accumulated money. As users share their bank details, cybercriminals steal money from their accounts, he said.

Cyber cell sleuths probing the click farm fraud cases have said that the 24 such cases reported in the city in the past six months have a common connection – the ‘Middle East’.

Investigation officer, Saurabh Mishra said operators work from Dubai.