Another multi-level marketing scam hits Hyderabad, 100 people duped

Admin   |   16 June, 2016   |   1508   |   3980

Hyderabad: A new multi-level marketing scam (MLM) has surfaced in Hyderabad with around a 100 victims losing money in the controversial QNet scheme.

Several people have come out alleging that they have lost lakhs in the dubious scheme and has demanded arrest of the managers, who have fled with crores.

After receiving the complaint from a group of people, the central crime station is now investigating the scam.  The Singapore-based QNet Private Ltd had already run into trouble with the law in Bengaluru and Mumbai police due to the same scam.

 The victims, mostly fresh graduates and college dropouts, alleged that they were lured by some people claiming to be company officials who offered them a high salary and commission to do ‘e-commerce’ for QNet products. 

Company officials asked them to pay around Rs 1 lakh as charges for registration, investment and training fee. However, the QNet officials neither provided them any job nor gave back their money even after a year.

After several complaints poured into S.R. Nagar police station cops found out that a QNet office was operating in Ameerpet, where most of the victims had paid their money. An FIR was registered in S.R. Nagar police station against company officials and later it was transferred to CCS.

“A person named Ramesh Kurmetti and his associates run the firm. He and others had been avoiding us for the last one year whenever we asked our money back,” said P. Vishwa Teja, one of the victims from Ameerpet.

The youngsters came to know about the company through Facebook and by word of mouth. “We were told that we will be getting around Rs 30,000 as salary as we add more customers and agents into the scheme. They asked us to get trained and promised that we would be selling their products like Bio Disc, Bio Light etc. However, nothing of that sort has happened so far,” said another victim M. Avinash.

Many people have paid Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakh while some paid Rs 1 lakh. The company officials had promised their commission would be higher according to the investment they put in.

While it is yet to be calculated how much money has been looted by the company officials victims claim that it would be around Rs 5 to Rs 8 crore.

Meanwhile, the police has not made any arrest so far in the case.

“We had registered a case after taking the complaint. Since it was an economic offence with a lot of money involved the case was transferred to CCS,” said S.R. Nagar inspector Md. Waheeduddin.