 |
| IDA: The app through which hundreds of Pakistanis lost their entire savings |
Last Friday evening, hundreds of people from a few cities in Central Punjab were glued to a WhatsApp group where they were being told 'all is well' through long voice notes.
The group was based on users using an app called IDA and the voice notes were being sent by senior managers running the group due to a 'technical glitch in the app'.
There was satisfaction in their voices and they were explaining the situation in detail. Users who invested crores of rupees in this app had no choice but to trust them.
The situation was like that of the violinists on the sinking Titanic because, in the next few hours, an app called iDayA was going to disappear along with the savings of millions of Pakistanis.
By late March, a few young people working in a company in Sialkot were seeing the app as a game changer in their careers.
One of them, Alishba, speaking to the BBC, referring to Pakistan's worsening economic situation and inflation, said, "At the moment, everyone wants the extra income to come from wherever it is coming from, because you Who knows what kind of conditions are in Pakistan.'
Alishaba had withdrawn money thrice through this app, but recently when a lucrative scheme was launched in the app, she put everything at stake, and now according to her, she has 'taken out more than what she invested'.
Alishba's own Rs 6 lakh and her entire family's Rs 15 lakh have been swallowed by the I-Day-A fraud.
The situation of hundreds of residents of many cities including Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujarat, and Wazirabad is similar.
The BBC also made repeated attempts to contact its senior managers on the app's WhatsApp group, but their phones remained switched off.
Assman for the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) told the BBC that 'so far they have not received any complaints in this regard.'
Therefore, the loss caused to the app users in this fraud cannot be accurately estimated at present, but after talking to the victims, it can be said that the amount could be in crores of rupees.
How did people 'profit' through the IDA app?
All these people had been investing in a mobile application called Cryptocurrency Intelligent Data Analytics Corporation IDA for the past several months.
There are many apps and websites related to cryptocurrency and trading, which are being used despite being banned in Pakistan, but what was so special about this app is that it cut the pockets of hundreds of people in broad daylight.
Learning about the app's intricate mechanisms brings to mind the words of author Charles Caleb Cotton 'Some frauds are so well executed that it would be foolish not to be deceived.'
Like Alishba, Sameer, who works in his office, was also attracted to the app by his colleagues. Sameer had to bear a total loss of six lakhs.
Until a few months ago, a link was provided to download this app from where its APK file was downloaded, but in March, this app was also available on the Google Play Store.
After downloading, the app had a complex identification and verification process, which involved sending a photo of the front and back of the ID card, even holding the ID card in hand.
"After a few minutes of verification, your account would be created and then you would be initially given Level V1," explains Sameer.
That is, it was like a game in which the rate of return increased with each passing level.
Elaborating on this, Sameer says, “Initially, if you deposited $130, the app would reward you with $15. You used to transfer this money to iDayA through Binance.
Binance is actually an app for trading cryptos and other currencies, which is very popular worldwide.
"After that, you had to do 30 clicks a day, one click meant 0.2 to 0.3 dollars, so you made four to five dollars a day," says Samir.
'For four minutes after one click, your assets would be zero, the rationale being that the money is actually invested further, so when it comes back, you get the returns. gets.'
The app also had some interesting terms, some of which led to its strong marketing.
Samir explains that 'in the V1 level they give you 90 days, in those 90 days if you don't invest more than $300 and introduce two more people with you to the app, you don't go to the next level. could go
This has never happened to anyone, so we don't know if it was true or not. Well, if you did that, your rate of profit would increase.
"When the withdrawal time started getting longer, I realized that this is a game with the double king"
For such a large number of people to lose money in fraud is certainly surprising, but this is obviously not the first time.
In Gujranwala, several years ago, the 'Double Shah' fraud became famous, which took away all the money after some time after promising to double people's money. In most cities of Punjab, groups claiming to double money and gold in places of prayer have also been very famous.
In such a situation, I asked the affected people whether they ever had this doubt that it could be a fraud?
Sameer immediately said that initially there was no doubt at all. He explains this by saying that 'in the beginning the profit was low and the money was going out and the people who knew on a WhatsApp group were also receiving money, so it was not felt in the beginning.
"When they launched this offer at the beginning of April that the more you deposit, the more you will be rewarded by the company, then when we invested and the withdrawal time started getting longer and we realized that So there is a double king game. '
Talking about this, Alishba says 'everyone told us that we have been using it for two years, so there is nothing wrong with it, you guys can also use it and then we have withdrawn the money, it's not like no. take out So they bought us our trust in the beginning by giving us money.
All the affected people, including Alishba and Samir, had one thing in common, they were all educated youths, but an interesting thing was also seen in all of them that they all got money from this app. The submission procedure was a verbal recall.
That is, the condition in this app is to bring two more people to this app within 90 days, it also proved to be its marketing strategy.
Fraud Marketing Practices
Former Additional Director General FIA Amar Jafari while talking to BBC told the public about the gangs that target fraud.
"Usually for this type of fraud, an app is created on a proxy server or overseas and is marketed by an entire network," he said.
"People tell each other, 'My money doubled too, I got it after hours.'" You should also note that such frauds are usually localized. Like the Amazon fraud that happened a year and a half ago today, which happened in the South Punjab region.
Talking about the marketing of such fraud schemes, Ammar Jafari says 'These people are so cruel that they do direct marketing, they will print an interview of someone who has received money, then each other. define under planning.'
We also see this example in I Day A Fraud. There is a video on the IDA YouTube channel and social media where young Pakistanis are seen praising the IDA app and saying 'how it has changed their lives'.
Amar Jafari says that usually some people are also planted who try to trap people in this fraud.
Sameer agrees, saying, "It could be because there were 900 people in that WhatsApp group, most of whom we didn't know."
"The biggest sign of fraud is that it is not accepted by common sense."
Ammar Jafari while talking about avoiding frauds says that 'The biggest characteristic of fraud is that it is not accepted by common sense, take the example of Double Shah, there is no business in the world that doubles things. .'
"In the same way mobile phones today have links inside forwarded messages, they're just there to get your information, they shouldn't be forwarded or clicked at all," he says.
He said that the FIA should investigate what was the IP address etc. of this app, who was on its backend, and also seek international help and arrest such persons.
However, Ammar Jafari also said that when the complaint goes to the FIA, it takes action, it has the power to do the same.
The same is the demand of the victims, one of whom, Atif, while talking about this, says that 'their facilitators in Pakistan must be caught.'
We know who stole our money. There is no single culprit in this problem, we are all criminals, and those who have benefited illegally should be caught.
"People are now being drawn to apps like Vidylook and Javai," he claims.
Alishba calls for an immediate ban on such apps because "we took as much money as we needed, but there are many people who invested all their money in it."
Sameer says that 'just as a person after someone's death says to bring back the wool, man, we are also saying the same thing, somehow bring back our money.'
The names of the victims discussed in this article have been changed.