Shekar Rao

Leone

Mittal

Ablaze Info Solutions

Rao

Google

Bollywood

Amisha Patel

IFSC

NEFT

Raj Shekar

Doddenakkundi

KR Puram

thought he had it made. The 40-year-old had a retirement plan; he wanted to quit his job as he had invested Rs 7+ lakh in a multi-level marketing scheme and the returns were good. What could go wrong, he thought.On Friday, he realized what could go wrong. Anubhav, the 26-year-old owner of the Noida-based company () thathad invested in was arrested. Police put the size of the scam at Rs 3,700-crore involving 7 lakh+ investors and it could grow as police and taxmen riffle through the company’s book of accounts.There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of Bengalureans like Rao who had invested in Ablaze Info Solutions to make unbelievable returns. Most of them are techies and probably knew how the online click-and-get-paid ad ecosystem works. The company had promised to pay Rs 5 per click, far higher than what(which virtually owns the online ad world) would typically pay. But then blinkers and greed go hand in hand.The scam was as obvious as a Ponzi scheme could get: all one had to do was to click on a bunch of ads every day and earn close to Rs 11,000 per month. The “job” required putting in 90 minutes every day – something every Bengalurean can do while she is stuck in the legendary traffic that has spurred a million memes. But here’s the catch: to register, one had to invest Rs 57,500 (non-refundable). And the more investors one brought in, the more one could earn (did we mention it was an obvious Ponzi scheme?)But few saw through Mittal’s scam. After all, it sounded legit: Ablaze Info Solutions was a registered company; it was paying service tax and also deducting TDS (tax deducted at source) so everybody thought it was clean. “The links were like pop-up advertisements that came up on certain websites and each click fetched us Rs 5 which made it Rs 625 per day. But the payment came after TDS deductions and we received Rs 543,” said an investor who did not wish to be named.Mittal, it now turns out, is a smooth operator. He used to throw parties for his investors to make it all look legit; in November last year, he invitedbombshell Sunny Leone andfor his birthday. (That should have put all doubts to rest, of course).Mittal’s company insisted that all payments be made online. “They had provided us a bank account number andcode and said they would receive onlypayments,” he said. “They paid on a per day basis to begin with but later on they started sending payments per week.”, a techie working near, invested because he had little else to do while he would regularly get stuck in the traffic jam atjunction; he used his mobile to click on the ads and make some money. Theoretically. Today, he has lost all his investment. And the jam at KR Puram won’t let the wounds heal anytime soon.