Scoin part time task - Scammed by Fake Chegg India Recruitment

I received a WhatsApp message from Divya Mehta, claiming to be a Recruitment Manager from Chegg India, on **th September ****. She offered me an online part-time job. I accepted the offer, and she gave me a Telegram contact link of Aarya (Receptionist) to proceed.

My first task was simple – giving a Google rating for a restaurant, and I was paid ₹*** for completing it. Since I was already aware that many businesses promote themselves on social media and pay for reviews, I believed this was genuine and decided to do it as a side job.

On *st October ****, I was given more rating tasks and an investment task. I completed ** tasks out of the ** they gave. For the **th task, I had to invest ₹*,***, but they told me the slot was full. Instead, they asked me to pay ₹**,*** and assured a refund of ₹**,*** upon task completion.
While completing the **th task, they suddenly asked for additional deposits: ₹**,*** + ₹**,*** (withdrawal order), which I paid. I mistakenly chose the “Buy Up” option instead of “Buy Down,” so to reconcile this, they told me to deposit another ₹**,***.

I was convinced because the Telegram group had many people sharing screenshots and messages, which made it look real.

Later, they said to withdraw my money, I had to pay ₹**,***, and promised this was the last step. I trusted them and paid, after which I received a small test withdrawal of ₹*,***. When I asked Kumari (from the withdrawal team) about the next step, she didn't reply as she had gone for a meeting. Since all steps had to be completed within one hour, I entered the next withdrawal request for ₹**,*** — but I did not receive the funds.

Now the story changed again. Kumari claimed that the withdrawal process had four steps:

*. Test withdrawal ₹*,***
*. First withdrawal ₹*,***
*. Second withdrawal ₹**,***
*. Final withdrawal (remaining balance)

She said I skipped a step, so the withdrawal channel was closed. Then she directed me to Vanita, saying I had to match a new order to get the withdrawal code. Vanita said since I skipped the steps, I had to match an order worth **–**% of my total balance, which was ₹***,***.

I told her I didn’t want any profit, just my invested money back, and I didn't have the funds to continue. Around this time, I got a call from an unknown number,I would never get my money back unless I paid ₹**,*** to him. I informed Vanita, and she said these kinds of frauds happen to their clients often and that they had posted warnings in the group.

I started feeling something was wrong, but I still hoped things were legit. I told them I didn’t have any money left. They offered a loan of ₹**,***, which I would repay as soon as I got my refund. I ended up paying ₹**,***, believing it would help me recover my funds.

After this, I was given the withdrawal code. But when I entered it, I received an error.

When I contacted Kumari, she said I needed to increase my points to ** to withdraw. For this, I was told to contact Mr. Gautam — who turned out to be the main scammer. He knew everything — every transaction, reconciliation — but he pretended to be unaware. He then said that to improve my credit score and withdraw my money, I needed to deposit ₹*,**,***.

That’s when I realized it was all a scam and decided to stop.

In my life, I have never borrowed money from anyone because I believe in living happily with whatever I have. I only did this job to learn something new, explore business strategies, and earn a little extra — but I ended up losing everything. I feel like a fool now.

Please don’t fall for such scams, even if they look professional, come through WhatsApp, and use names like Chegg India.