Home Fake jobs fraud Indigo Airlines fake jobs fraud : case study

Indigo Airlines fake jobs fraud : case study

March 15, 2022

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This article has been written by Oishika Banerji of Amity Law School, Kolkata. This article provides a case study of jobs fraud by the Indigo Airlines where certain individuals purporting to represent the airline are exploiting the brand name and the names of Indigo personnel in order to get money in return for conducting interviews, giving positions, or providing training.

This article has been published by Sneha Mahawar.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Indigo Airlines jobs fraud case was a well-organised racket that majorly operated in the year 2021 thereby deceiving several job applicants interested to work with the prestigious Indigo Airlines. Although whether the racket continues to exist or not does not have a piece of underlying evidence as such fraud activities continue to exist all across the globe. Employment scams are a common offence that preys for innocent job seekers who easily fall in the trap laid down by fraudsters. This article not only discusses the jobs fraud racket that operated by the name of Indigo Airlines but also provides its readers with adequate information surrounding rising employment scams and possible ways to defend the same.

Fraud job calls : an alarming danger

There are more fake postings than ever before as the internet arena expands on a daily basis. The majority of us can recognize a fraudulent job posting when we see one. However, there are a sizable number of people that fall for them; hook, line, and sinker. As a result, organisations occasionally issue warnings to job searchers about such advertising. Job fraud has become more common as the internet realm has grown, according to job-search businesses. To escape discovery, many employment scammers employ complex techniques. With the rise of internet transactions, it’s becoming easier for consumers to be duped by fraud employment offers. Fraudsters frequently exploit the names of well-known employment sites to deceive people, so we must be quite mindful of how these things function.

Fake employment rackets have exploded in popularity, due to dwindling work opportunities in the commercial and public sectors, as well as a flood of students graduating from low-quality professional schools. As the globe goes towards automation, the growth of employment rackets in India is linked to a decrease in professions needing poor technical skills. Racketeers have stretched their tentacles far and wide, from promising positions in the military forces and railroads to getting you placed in prominent IT businesses like Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, and TCS. As the internet becomes more widely available in the country, it becomes a helpful tool for criminals to misrepresent themselves through phoney websites and emails. Desperation among youth makes them easy prey for work rackets as they constantly compete for fewer private and government employment.

How do fraud job rackets function?

The different ways in which fraud job rackets function and successfully deceive innocent job seekers are discussed hereunder.

Exploiting the brand appeal

With private-sector hiring sliding downwards in recent years, jobs at large corporations are in high demand. Working with TCS or Wipro or say for instead Indigo Airlines entails not just employment but also a great deal of prestige. The attraction of famous brands is exploited by job swindlers. The majority of work rackets rely on well-known brands to entice young people most belonging from developing regions and even on the outskirts of major cities. The racketeers usually accept money from job seekers and occasionally even send out false offer letters on fake letterheads to the candidates. A similar kind of situation had taken over the prestigious brand of Indigo Airlines.

In June 2018, Hyderabad police detained three individuals who had been operating two fictitious firms for over three months, namely, Arkon Technologies in Somajiguda and Propel Technologies in Madhapur, and taking Rs 2 lakh from each candidate. While one of the accused used to represent himself as the managing director of Propel Technologies, another worked for both Propel and Arkon as the head of HR.

The fraud job racket that operated by the name of Indigo Airlines successfully collected money by fraudulent means from several job seekers only because the brand name of Indigo Airlines had earned immense goodwill for over several years.

Phishing at reputed job portals

Another method of defrauding job searchers is through reputable employment platforms, where racketeers collect personal information from job seekers and then abuse them. They compile a database of sensitive personal data on unknowing individuals, which might be badly exploited later. Three guys were detained in June 2018 in Ghaziabad’s Kavi Nagar for allegedly defrauding many job applicants out of Rs 3.5 crore over the previous two years. The ringleader posed as a representative of fictional firms such as Idea International and Entomace Technology India Pvt Ltd on Naukri.com and advertised employment. He would gather personal information from candidates who applied for such positions. He would afterward give them fraud interview letters from well-known companies. He urged the candidates to pay for the interviews using Paytm so that they could get the jobs.

Taking this concern into account, several well-known dignitaries of Indigo Airlines had repeatedly made it clear to job applicants that they only hire individuals who apply directly through their websites and not in any other form. An understanding of the same has been provided in the latter part of this article.

Fake/false websites

Another tactic is to establish false company websites that candidates may visit to verify the ‘genuineness’ of the employment being offered. These crooks even set up fake social media accounts in the names of these fictional businesses. Candidates registering on these websites give the racketeers access to their personal data. They not only offer false jobs on these websites, but they also administer exams, post the results, and charge the ‘successful candidates’ for passing the interview.

Fake consultants

Some fraud artists act as fraud career advisors and charge high fees in exchange for promises of positions in reputable corporations and government agencies. A few years ago, Noida police apprehended a guy who posed as a phoney employment adviser with the aid of three accomplices, one of them, a former employee of a reputable job portal, had allegedly stolen the personal information of over 3,000 job searchers. They would call the youth, offer them work in private companies all throughout the NCR region, and ask them to pay in installments. He had hired a well-furnished office in Sector 72 for Rs 40,000 per month, where he would meet with the hopefuls. The accused and his associates would collect Rs 1,600 as a registration fee from the youngsters, followed by Rs 5,000 for document verification and Rs 10,000 for the appointment letter.

Racket all the way

To look authentic, some racketeers will go to any extent. They won’t stop at obtaining a forged job letter for you. They will force you to take the position, train you, and even put money in your account for a few months. The CBI nabbed eight people in July 2018 who were involved in a railway recruitment fraud. To acquire a job, they used to demand payment of Rs 3 to 5 lakh. They had constructed a website that looked suspiciously like the Railway Recruitment Board. They held fraudulent recruiting exams and even published the results on a fake website. Even medical fitness certifications from a government hospital were required of the candidates. Racketeers interviewed and trained individuals in a modified office of a lower-rung employee at Lucknow’s Charbagh railway station. They were assigned to a variety of tasks at the train station. In the same month, Delhi police broke another railway employment ring, in which the ringleaders eventually gave the ‘trainees’ a two-month pay.

Lookalike website

Racketeers imitate reputable corporations or government bodies by creating websites with deceptively identical domain names. Telangana police d etained three persons four years ago for defrauding job seekers by building a false website for a government organisation, Telangana Agro Development Corporation, on which they welcomed employment applications under several categories. The candidates were charged for the application forms and processing.

Fake campus placement

It’s possible that even on-campus placement is a ruse. Racketeers had once defrauded an engineering institution in Odisha, more than 300 students received fake job offers as a result of the racketeers’ deception of the college officials during a fake campus recruiting campaign. They forged employment offers from Huawei, Mitsubishi, and Ircon International, among others. When students proceeded to apply for jobs with the firms, they were informed that the offer was a fraud in itself.

How to locate a fraud job offer?

The onus of locating a fraud job offer lies solely on the shoulders of the job applicant. Even before raising issues concerning the company offering fraud jobs in demand for money or any sensitive personal information, the job applicant must be well-acknowledged with the place he or she is applying to.

Click and tell

Verify the validity of the mailer by verifying the strings marked “Mailed by” and “Signed by” at the top of the email by clicking on the “display details” option near the top of the email. Those that are affiliated with a legitimate recruiting platform will always have the platform’s credentials in these categories.

Get those details

A legitimate recruiting platform will be able to supply enough information about itself. If a consultant contacts you about a job opening, request that they provide you an email containing the company’s logo, contact information, and official website.

Watch the conversation

If you have applied for a position, only legitimate recruiters and consultants will contact you. Furthermore, the chat will be entirely focused on your history, experience, and abilities. Certainly, there will be no demand for money.

Report them

Report the consultant or recruiter to the platform with which they claim to be affiliated if they push you to pay for services in which you have shown no interest.

Laws governing employment scams

The Infor mation Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act), as well as the Indian Penal Code of 1860, prohibit a variety of cybercrimes in order to safeguard citizens and deter cyber fraudsters from committing such crimes. The individual who has been wronged should file a police complaint for registration of the First Information Report (FIR) as soon as possible. The offended party can also register a complaint with the Cyber Cell of the relevant jurisdiction, informing them about the cybercrime, among other things. The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal can be used to file the complaint.

Information Technology Act, 2000

The Information Technology Act, 2000 has been key legislation in governing cyber crimes in India. Some of the notable provisions that one needs to be aware of in this respect are discussed hereunder:

Sections 43 and 66

Hacking into a computer network, data theft, introducing and spreading viruses through computer networks, damaging computers, computer networks, or computer programmes, disrupting any computer, computer system, or computer network, denying an authorised personnel access to a computer or computer network, damaging or destroying information residing in a computer, and so on are all prohibited under Sections 43 and 66 of the IT Act. The maximum penalty for the aforesaid offences is 3 years in jail or a fine of Rs. 5,00,000, or both.

Section 66C

Identity theft is punishable under Section 66C of the IT Act, which states that anyone who fraudulently or dishonestly uses another person’s electronic signature, password, or other unique identification feature shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term that may extend to 3 years, as well as a fine of up to Rs. 1,00,000.

Indian Penal Code, 1860

The four important provisions that can be invoked to shield against employment scams are provided hereunder:

Section 378

As Section 22 of the IPC states that the words ‘movable property’ are intended to include corporeal property of every description, except land and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything attached to the earth, Section 378 of the IPC, which deals with ‘theft of movable property’, will apply to the theft of any data, online or otherwise. The maximum penalty for theft under Section 378 of the IPC is three years in jail or a fine, or both.

Section 411

Punishment for dishonestly receiving stolen property and is worded in a manner that is almost identical to Section 66B of the IT Act. The punishment under Section 411 of the IPC is imprisonment of either description for a term of up to 3 (three) years or with a fine, or with both.

Section 424

This provision will be applicable to data theft. Section 424 prescribes a maximum penalty of up to 2 years in jail, a fine, or both.

Section 463

The making of a false document or part thereof with the intent to cause damage or injury to the public or to any person, or to support any claim or title, or to cause any person to part with property, or to enter into any express or implied contract, or with the intent to commit fraud or that fraud may be committed, is defined as forgery under Section 463 of the IPC.

Indigo Airlines fake jobs fraud : an insight

On 2nd February 2021, Indigo Airlines, the country’s largest airline, warned customers against fake job offers made in its name and recommended them to report anybody who begs for money and promises a position at the carrier to the authorities. The Delhi Police have arrested 12 people on charges of defrauding hundreds of job applicants by offering them jobs with Indigo Airlines. The accused obtained data on the targeted persons from the ‘Quikr Jobs‘ recruitment portal.

How does a fraud job offer functions with respect to Indigo Airlines?

Raj Raghavan, Senior Vice President and Head of Human Resources at Indigo Airlines while getting interviewed by CNBC-TV18 had stated that they have been witnessing fraud job offer incidents for several months, notably when the initial lockdown ended and they began re-hiring. The method in which the same operates is simple and provided hereunder:

Someone posts a fake job on an online portal like Quikr or OLX,
When job seekers contact these perpetrators, they claim to be from Indigo Airlines and demand payments ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1,50,000 for things like registration fees, security fees, uniform fees, training expenses, joining kit, bond fees, and so on.
They use the Indigo Airlines logo, and on occasion, the Airports Authority logo, at the bottom of the offering letter. They mostly target states in the south and sections of northern India.
Fraudsters have become far more sophisticated, and they now employ technology to their advantage. The problem for HR experts is to be able to convey this consistently and in a way that people can understand when they are getting wronged.
The job seeker in haste and quest for a job and financial security pays the amount asked for with the hope of getting a secured job in the Airlines.

Steps taken by Indigo Airlines to address the fraud

Raj Raghavan has time and again clarified that “Indigo is entirely dedicated towards eliminating frauds perpetrated on innocent job seekers by miscreants posing as corporate personnel.” They have effectively partnered with law enforcement organisations in the previous few years, and they have been really helpful in apprehending these con artists. However, they feel that this may be fully eliminated if gullible job searchers are not taken advantage of. The senior dignitary issued a statement saying, “I’d want to emphasise that Indigo does not charge candidates, and anyone soliciting money from a candidate, no matter how minimal it be, is trying to deceive people.”

While commenting on the measures taken to combat the phoney job offer scam in Indigo Airlines, Ronojoy Dutta, Chief Executive Officer of the airlines stated that they have been cautioning job searchers through awareness efforts via advisories and ads. They feel it is their job as the industry leader to detect and manage such malpractices that affect not just Indigo Airlines but also other firms in the field. The dignitary further stated that they have had previously worked in close partnership with law enforcement agencies to identify these offenders with great success. Therefore, once again with the help of the police department and public awareness, they want to put an end to this threat.

Reachout through social media

Indigo, a low-cost carrier, has issued a warning to anybody interested in working with the firm. The airline has warned candidates to be wary of bogus offers made in the company’s name. In a tweet dated 10th December 2020, Indigo said, “Please be cautious of certain persons claiming to represent Indigo – exploiting the brand name and the names of our workers, demanding money in return for interviews or positions.” The airline has encouraged candidates to be ‘alert and never fall for such frauds’ in a 25-second video clip shared on its official Twitter profile.
Indigo Airlines has launched a social media and internet campaign to raise awareness against fraudulent employment offers. A statement released on October 19, 2021, stated that through its creatives on anti-fake jobs campaign across social media and website, Indigo is raising awareness on how certain people claiming to represent the airline are misusing the brand name and the names of Indigo employees, and demanding money in exchange for conducting interviews, providing jobs, or imparting training. It further said that the airline does not charge for conducting interviews or providing training to new employees. If someone asks for money and offers a position at Indigo, the problem must be reported to the police right away. In addition, the airline is taking necessary action in incidents that are reported.

Addressing awareness among employees and the general public through emails

Various steps that Indigo Airlines has taken to spread awareness about fake job offers are provided hereunder:

Frequent emails from the HR leader to all employees informing them and seeking support to spread awareness,
Placement of ‘caution’ posters/standees at key locations at all airports,
‘Caution’ standee placement during hiring drives at all locations, and weekly/fortnightly posts on Indigo’s official social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn).

Collaboration with different job portals

The airline is working with a number of employment boards to raise awareness about fraud job listings. In addition, material for virtual and physical interviews has been developed to warn candidates about these job offers. On the front page of the airline’s official job website, there is also a ‘warning’ message available.

Reaching out to the consumer complaints addressed on fraud grounds

Here is an example of one of the victims of the Indigo Airlines jobs fraud case and what he had to bear within the process. The role of Indigo Airlines in acknowledging the issue has been discussed hereunder as well:

An individual from Ajmer, Rajasthan had lodged a complaint before the Indian Consumer Complaint Forum stating that on his email address he had received an email about airport employment openings. In that email, the entire job description, as well as the phone number for the contact person, were provided.
Raj Malhotra was the one who answered the phone and explained the recruiting procedure to the person when he carried out the directions in the mail. Mr Malhotra had provided the complaint with an email address of the HR of Indigo Airlines and had instructed him to send his paperwork to that address.
Upon uploading the same, the complainant had received an email from Indigo Airlines informing him that based on his documents, he had been selected for an interview. The mail further stated that the reference ID and interview question-answer sheet would be sent to the complainant upon him paying an amount of Rs 2500. The bank account details were also provided.
Upon payment, the complainant was interviewed over telephone by a lady alleged to be an employer of Indigo Airlines.
The following day, the complainant had received a call from the verification department of the airline, when a person recognized by the name of Amit Agarwal had asked the complainant to deposit another 7500 rupees (refundable) for the security deposit.
After depositing a total of Rs 10,000, the complainant had received an offer letter from Indigo Airlines.
The next day Mr. Agarwal had again called the complainant and had told him to deposit a sum of Rs 10,000 (refundable) again for the current account opening as a security deposit. This was when the complainant had approached the consumer forum.

The Indigo Customer Care had responded to the alleged complaint in the following ways:

The Airlines clarified that they do not engage in any unauthorised person or mediator to secure an appointment of a candidate who is willing to join in a position at Indigo.
The Airlines had further clarified that all appointment and recruitment-related work are handled by genuine and authorised officials of the Human Resource Department of Indigo at its Gurgaon office or any location officially designated by authorised officials of Indigo.
The Airlines made it clear that they do not indulge in the practices of collecting any processing/ enrollment fees from job aspirants/candidates.
They further suggested the complainant visit their Careers website and upload his resume there. The Airline also assured that if the complainant’s resume gets shortlisted, he will be contacted by Indigo’s recruitment team.

The do’s and don’ts with respect to Indigo Airlines fraud job offers

The factors one should be mindful of with respect to the fraud racket tarnishing the brand of Indigo Airlines:

Ask questions to have a better understanding of the job role and Indigo’s work culture.
Make sure you get an interview confirmation email from the recruiter you spoke with and make sure the email doesn’t include any fees or costs.
Ensure that any communication regarding the selection and offer comes from the official Indigo email address ([email protected]).
Be alert to notice fake appointment letters:

Does not have an authentic signature.
Has tampered with the Indigo logo and images.

The list of don’ts that a job applicant should be aware of are provided hereunder:

Do not pay any fee for interview registration, the application process, uniform, etc.
Do not be fooled by an interview procedure that purports to pick candidates based solely on telephone discussions and no face-to-face meetings.
Do not pay any fee for offer confirmation, any training charges, or joining deposits.
Do not accept any offer or selection confirmation email basis interviews only through telephonic medium and without any face-to-face meeting.

How to protect yourself from employment scams in India

Approaching the state actors

First and foremost, you should lodge a police report at your local police station. The police station has a cyber cell that specialises in dealing with offences of cyber fraud. You have the option of submitting your complaint through email or a letter as well.

If the address of the company is known to you then you can move legally too in the following ways

Start a social campaign: Begin a social media campaign in opposition to the fraud job consultancy. Not only will posting on social media publicly disgrace the firm, but it will also alert others to the fact that it is a fraud.
Send a legal notice: A legal notice can be sent to the concerned job consultancy responsible for carrying out the fraud. Certain scammers will lose confidence as a result of the legal notification, and they will panic and hand up all of the money they have stolen, to you. You can hire any skilled advocate or lawyer to prepare and submit this legal notice to the firm.
File a case in the consumer forum: If you have not received a response from the employment firm after issuing a legal notice, you could file a complaint with the consumer court having jurisdiction to try the complaint.

Steps that will help you recover your money

Here are 7 steps that will help you recover the money that you have lost over fraud job rackets:

To track down the IP address from which you got the scam email, file a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell.
Fill out a Customer Dispute Resolution Form and submit it to the bank where you transferred the funds.
Make a report to the bank where you sent the money and where the scammer maintains an account.
File a complaint with the Adjudicating Officer under the Information Technology Act, 2000 against the bank where the scammer’s bank account is active, as well as make the IP address a party so the court can order a tracing of the address.
Your complaint will be investigated further by the court, and the case will be heard and determined within 6 to 9 months.
The Information Technology (Qualification and Experience of Adjudicating Officers and Manner of Holding Enquiry) Rules, 2003 should be followed while filing a complaint.
The application charge for submitting a complaint is Rs. 50, and a court fee is required based on the amount of the claim.

Conclusion

In India, job scams or fraud are fairly widespread. As a result, when looking for employment online, one should always be cautious and avoid paying any money to join, as any legitimate job firm would not do so. However, there are several telltale symptoms of employment fraud. Some of them include requests for money in advance, requests for your bank account information, amateurish emails with multiple grammatical problems, and a lack of information about the firm on the internet, among others. As a result, if you’re looking for work online and come across any of the above-mentioned choices, you should definitely avoid them and hunt for anything else.

References

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