'Make me pregnant and get Rs 25 lakh': Pune man loses Rs 11 lakh after falling for fake offer

Representative image

A 44-year-old contractor from Pune lost Rs 11 lakh after falling for an online scam that promised him Rs 25 lakh to impregnate a woman.

According to an FIR registered at Baner police station, the victim came across a video ad on social media from a company calling itself ‘Pregnant Job’ in early September. In the video, a woman said in Hindi, “I want a man who will make me a mother. I will give him Rs 25 lakh. I don’t care about his education, caste, or appearance.”

The man called the number shown in the video after getting tempted by the offer. The person who answered introduced himself as an assistant from the ‘Pregnant Job’ firm and told the victim he needed to register and get an ID card before being assigned the ‘job’, according to a report by The Indian Express.

Over the following weeks, the fraudsters demanded money for multiple ‘formalities’, including registration fees, ID card charges, verification, GST, TDS, and processing fees. The victim made more than 100 small online payments via UPI and IMPS between early September and October 23, amounting to Rs 11 lakh in total.

How did the scam unravel?

After repeatedly sending money, the contractor began asking questions about the supposed job. The scammers then blocked his number and stopped responding. The man approached Baner police after realising that he had been duped. The police filed an FIR and began investigating the phone numbers and bank accounts involved in the case.

“The victim was cleverly manipulated with false promises and urgency. We are tracing the digital footprints of the fraudsters,” an investigating officer was quoted by The Indian Express as saying.

Part of a larger cyber scam

Cybercrime experts in Pune said similar scams have been spreading across India since late 2022. Fraudsters use social media videos showing women offering huge sums for ‘pregnancy jobs’ under names like ‘Pregnant Job Service.’

In many cases, victims are tricked into paying for medical tests, legal procedures, or security deposits. Once the payments are made, the scammers vanish.

Police in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and other states have made arrests in such cases, revealing that these scams were part of wider cybercrime networks exploiting social media and fake video advertisements to lure victims.