Scam by committee; be wary of who you put your faith in on the internet.
In a recent tragic case, a woman was responsible for pulling off a fraud that resulted in a loss of 420 million rupees under the guise of collecting “committee” online.
KARACHI:
Impact on the common people is not a foreign concept given the country’s extremely precarious financial state and the country’s ever-rising inflation. We occasionally hear news reports of people taking their own lives because they had no money. Imagine losing that hard-earned money to a fraud at a time when it is increasingly harder to earn every penny. It’s important to comprehend how someone might get away with such a deception and what solutions are available to those who lose their money.
We also encounter online scams in a nation where fraud and political figure corruption are widespread. Many people are still unaware of the possibility of losing money from their bank accounts if they disclose any information online. A woman who committed a 420 million rupee scam under the guise of the “committee” recently startled the public. Sidra Humaid is her name. She operates two web businesses—one selling food, the other crochet—together.
Many of Humaid’s friends, friends of friends, neighbours, and later online friends began responding to her suggestion to save money in 2013. Humaid started involving people in a committee, which is a regular gathering of men and women in which each member contributes money to a central pool, and lots are drawn to determine which member will receive the entire sum. At first, the payment was as little as 50 rupees a month, with some arrangements calling for a maximum payment of 5,000 rupees. Her plan was well received, and she soon had 117 committees operating concurrently after starting with just one.
According to one of her con victims, Humaid is from a middle-class household. Although her husband had a respectable income, she had significantly enhanced her lifestyle in the last several years, from having pricey phones to owning expensive designer brands of clothing and shoes. Those who knew her personally were concerned about it, but they had always assumed that the success of her enterprises or the high income of her husband might have been the cause of the shift. Nobody could have predicted that Humaid was embezzling funds from the committee.
Describe a committee.
A committee is a common practise on the subcontinent in which a group of people agree to set a monthly collection amount, with one person receiving the full sum. It is a synchronised system in which monthly turns are planned out in advance, occasionally in response to a specific request to be paid that month. One candidate is chosen after a vote is taken. Family, neighbours, and friends make up the majority of a committee because the entire process is founded on trust.
The victims of committee frauds have legal recourse.
The lack of a written agreement or a legislation governing a committee setup limits the options available to victims. Nevertheless, financial frauds can be dealt with legally. Numerous victims were acquainted with Humaid and were aware of her residence. They began pursuing her after she made her apologies public, and they even went to her residence, which she had just left empty. Additionally, Humaid has filed a complaint with the court, declaring that she would only address the situation there and won’t return any money to anyone else.
In her statement, Humaid claimed that despite her repeated verbal assurances that they were updating their accounts to pay everyone to whom they were legally obligated, they continued to receive threats and had frequent visitors. They were forced to move in order to protect their family. Additionally, they disclosed in the statement that they had applied for their protection orders in court through their lawyer, Kamran Alam. She included a copy of the complaint with her social media post as well.
Victims who have experienced severe losses are left with no choice but to file a lawsuit. One of her victims, Umair Ahmed, claims that while Humaid hasn’t denied that she owes them money, she won’t be able to repay them due to the scale of the debt. He informs her that she has declared bankruptcy.
“I have started updating the list of persons who I need to pay and get money from,” Humaid wrote on social media. We have consequently employed an accountant to perform the reconciliation because there are many members. Please let us four to five days to resolve that. Members whose sums were reconciled have already begun receiving payments from us, and we will keep doing so over the next few days. I haven’t left the country, and my family and I am attempting to pay the bills. Please be aware that payments will be made to everyone soon. Guys, please don’t freak out. You’ll receive your money back in the upcoming months.
