Cyber Frauds Beware before they scam you! - IT Insight :: IT & Telecom magazine covering Asian & Gulf's IT&T market (Publishes every month from Islamabad/Rawalpindi - Pakistan). Giving special insight to Pakistan's IT and Telecom industry

For the past few years our young generation is actively engaged for the search of jobs after getting the professional education in various fields. From IT to Telecom or Business education, our young generation mostly get struck after the completion of their education with a dream of foreign jobs, an H-1 B visa of the transatlantic nations like US, and keep on searching for jobs in various domains. This search is nowadays mostly done on the Internet. Though it's a good idea to search for any thing on the Internet. It is also a good idea to search for education or better universities abroad, it is also a better idea to even search for the best scholarships, so to have the best future in your life. But sometimes this leads to a sad end and when you know that you have been scammed, nothing remains under control and all you can do is regret. One should be aware of all pluses and minuses of online information before taking any action on that. This article is an effort to create awareness on this issue.

Although there is a great need for concrete support to research and development, higher education standards are improving in Pakistan. As the investment inflow continues, job market is flourishing and skilled workforce of Pakistan can now enjoy lots of job opportunities. On the other hand, semi-skilled individuals and even unskilled workforce are facing tough times in getting jobs in the country. These people try to find companies where they can apply for work and a special interest for working abroad develops in these unemployed citizens. Some skilled people also love to work abroad for their own interests. To all these, Internet is the best source to get information either right or wrong. Many of these information seekers are not aware of the dark side of online searching. Some of them have already been trapped in the scam of illegal websites and have lost their precious money.

Actually, some months ago a friend of mine happily informed me about his job in an oil exploration company abroad. I congratulated him on this and he was so happy to get a high paying job abroad. He didn't tell me that he had sent some 400 US Dollars (24 thousand Pak Rupees approx.) to that company. After few weeks, he came to know that he didn't get the job and instead just got a confirmation of registration with a website and they will contact him soon, and that's it! His said remarks assured me about this fraudulent action with my innocent friend.

After knowing about this issue from various social circles, I decided to become an apparent job seeker for one month on the Internet to get the insight of this story. Amazingly there are hundreds of websites offering you lucrative jobs in oil exploration, tourism and other attractive and high paying industries. I started my search on with keywords “jobs in oil rigs” and then “jobs in world class hotels” and after that “jobs in Cruise liners” etc. To my surprise, I found plenty of websites offering me lucrative jobs even without much qualification. As an apparent job searcher, in no time, I was dreaming of moving to Europe. Most of these websites did not have any office address and instead P.O. box, E-mail, phone numbers were only ways to contact them.

One should not trust online information at the first sight and should do a good investigation before taking any action on that. Otherwise, you might also get trapped by these criminals who play with innocent people. Government is doing a lot in coping with cyber frauds with the help of investigation and law enforcement agencies but there should also be general awareness about this issue.

My expedition of discovering this world of cyber frauds continues and I will provide more information on this in my upcoming articles as I research more on this.

The writer is an IT and Telecom industry analyst. He can be reached at imran@itinsight.info.