“Megs, there’s something I need to tell you”.
“Yes Sam “.
“Megs I’ve fallen in love with you. I want to live with you in India”.
“Are you serious?“ Megha was stunned!
“Yes dear. Please look for a suitable place for me in India. I’d like to settle
down in India with you. My budget is GBP 200,000/-“

It had started with a simple friend request on a social networking site from Sam Newton.

Megha generally did not accept friend requests from unknown persons. However, the engaging smile in the profile, had made her hesitate before rejecting the request of the soldier in uniform.

She had accepted the request. There were several pictures on his page. One with his daughter about 7 years of age, brown eyes, sweet innocent smile.

“Hullo there!” her messenger beeped, and she saw it was a message from
Sam. “How are you doing?” Megha responded “I’m doing great!”.

What had started off with a greeting went on to become more intense and serious as Megha and Sam continued chatting with each other, She would leave a good morning message for him when she woke up and he would reply to
it by noon. They messaged often and more so at night when they were both back home,
each sharing their day‟s activities, she from Mumbai and he from London. This went on for almost two months. Megha shared pictures of her family, her parents, her friends. Sam told her about Naomi, his wife who had
passed away due to cancer four years ago. Coming out of her thoughts, Megha said

“Sam, let me search for a suitable place for you”. “It’s for us honey,” said Sam.

Megha spoke to friends, looked for options and decided Goa would be the best option. Goa with its red earth, peaceful beaches, swaying palms, and idyllic lifestyle would be the perfect place. Megha had seen so many foreigners there.

“Sam I’ve identified a few options for Goa. When you come to India, you
can see them and finalise. However, foreigners aren’t allowed to buy
property in India so we will have to figure a way out of it.”
“Megs honey. I cannot wait to meet you. I’m travelling to India on 1st
December’19. Please send me your bank details to transfer the money for
the house to your account.”

Megs had heard of scams and how bank details could be misused for fraudulent transfers. As a precaution, she provided details of an account which she rarely used. The day the money was to come in, Megha received a call from Delhi from a lady claiming to be calling from Reserve Bank. The lady verified her bank details and said a draft for GBP 200,000/- had come in her name. However, she said that Megha needed to pay the conversion charges for the draft.

“How much is that?”
“Rs 21000/- “ the lady answered.

“Can that not be deducted from the amount sent?” asked Megha.
“No Ma’am it has to be deposited in a bank account before the transfer.”
“Ok please forward me the details” said Megha.

A few minutes later Megha received a text message on her phone with a name “Rohit Kumar, XXX Bank. Saving A/c number 10000012345 branch Palika Bazar, New Delhi”. The woman called her back and persisted that once she had deposited Rs21000/- in the account, the money from the draft would be transferred to her account in an hour‟s time. Megha went to the branch of the bank which was nearby and inquired about the account. She was told it belonged to a person living in Guwahati. Suspicious that she was being made a victim of a fraud, she refused. The woman from Delhi called her again and asked if the money had been deposited. When Megha informed her that she hadn’t she abused her. Later she spoke to Sam. He insisted that his manager had said that paying the conversion charges was necessary.

“Honey do not disappoint me. I have risked GBP 200,000 for you, and you cannot risk 210 pounds for getting the money to your account?”
“Sam dear this is not the way foreign remittances are handled.”

Megha remembered they argued over this and then Sam had disconnected the phone. That was the last she had heard from him. Cybercrime was going up and this was one of the ways of luring people to part with their money. The modus operandi was to build relationships, create trust and then demand money. Megha had almost been a victim. This kind of fraud or scam is called as Advance Fee fraud. The modus operandi is the same – A request for a small amount of money is made in exchange of a promise of a large amount of money. The scammer may sometimes say- he is sending you gifts maybe a gold chain, a watch, a laptop etc.

He will send you a picture of the packed consignment and then ask for your address. This is just to build confidence in you that the gifts have been packed and have been shipped out. You are then expecting the parcel to reach you. Sure enough, a few days later you get a call that a parcel has come for you and is stuck in the customs. You have to pay custom duty without which parcel cannot be released. The person promises you that after the customs duty is paid, you will receive the parcel. Once you deposit the money- you never hear back from the person again. Same modus operandi- payment of a small amount in the promise of a gift of a larger value. Let us look at another story from my friend Sneha, a fairly successful professional, a widow age 55years. I am relating it in her words.

“He sent me a friend request on social media. He had an innocent looking
face. He was young -maybe 31 or so. He shared multiple pictures of
himself with her on chat. He said in the past he had worked in a bank and
been a VJ on a Music channel on TV. He was a great singer.
He was now handling a family business of mining and lived in Jaipur. He
mentioned, he liked doing charity work for a small NGO which worked
with tribal women.” Sneha said “I have seen him on the video chat. He
looks like his pictures. Really handsome and very charming. I like him a
lot”.
“Once he told me – I am planning to get 2 of the tribal girls connected to the
NGO married and we need to give them a wedding gift.
On behalf of us, I have committed Rs 21,000 as a wedding gift. You pay
Rs 11,000 and I will pay the balance. So, I said Sorry I cannot pay
11,000, maybe I can pay 5000. However, I kept thinking- everything that I
know about this charitable cause is through this person.
What if he is lying? How do I know he is telling me the truth? Two days
later, he called me saying- Could you transfer the money? I said, “No, I’ve
changed my mind. I don’t want to do it.” He started arguing and insisted
“you’ve committed so you have to pay”. He kept calling me repeatedly. I
blocked his calls and blocked him on social media.”

Sneha did not know but she was almost a victim of catfishing.

In catfishing, the scammer may use the name of a real person but post his own photographs. He gets close, very quickly and may try to lure the woman into intimate chats. Then requests for money come in. The reasons could be personal hardship, for e.g., for a sick relative or family member, or his business is failing or for a charitable cause. Scrutinize any online relationship that develops too fast. Never get into intimate chats as they can be used against you to blackmail. Never give money to someone unless you have a relationship with them offline. If you do decide to meet them in person, inform your family, and meet them in a public place. Check out their professional profile and do an online search for their profile. Aditi received a friend request on social media from Jyoti, a woman staying in Delhi. She was probably a housewife. After a few minutes of Aditi accepting the request, Jyoti wanted to have a video chat with her. Aditi wondered why. Jyoti convinced her that she just wanted to see her since she was a new friend.

Thinking it would be ok, she accepted the video call. At the other end, she saw a man trying to show off his genitals. Disgusted Aditi cut the call and blocked Jyoti. Friends, in the cyber world, you never know who is the person on the other side. Do not reveal too much information about yourself. Ensure your settings are secure and what can be seen is restricted to your friends. Be careful. Check out the person‟s professional profile and his page. Be cautious before you accept that friend request on social media. In case something does not seem right, just unfriend and block the person.

Your safety is your priority.

Internet and social media have become a necessary part of our lives almost like food, clothing, shelter. The anonymity offered, ease of communication, the ability to connect with anyone, the global reach has brought in its share of frauds and scams that occur. I will be focusing on the scams relating to sexual harassment. This can happen with any sex.

Both men and women need to be cautious and alert. I will be sharing the different types of scams that can occur with real life stories and experiences.

Sexting

Sexting is the sharing of explicit sexually explicit material. A girl takes sexually explicit pictures of herself and share it with her boyfriend or she may take them and someone else may share them against her will. This generally happens among youngsters and college students. Girls may click such pictures and share them with their boyfriends or click such pictures because it is the in-thing with the college students. If the relationship turns nasty, such pictures may get shared. These pictures can later be misused for extortion, or blackmail or defaming someone, or in any other way.

On the 1st of Jan 2015, Nyika Allen woke up alerted by a message on Twitter. She found a nude picture of herself. It had been posted by her ex-boyfriend. She had 785 followers. Possibly all could have seen her picture. She was shocked. She felt ashamed and vulnerable. Her privacy has been violated. She complained to the police. It was extremely embarrassing for her. She was a victim of revenge porn. The term sexual revenge porn is a misnomer since it might not happen, only for revenge, but may happen for blackmail and extortion, controlling a person to obtain sexual benefits, for voyeurism, to extort money, to build up their own social status by demeaning others.

Cyberstalking

Cyberstalking is the use of technology to stalk an individual. The purpose is to harass, annoy, frighten, attack, control, threaten or verbally abuse individuals. It can happen in various ways. I saw a demonstration in which a man requested a woman in the audience to hand over her mobile phone. After a minute, he returned it. He then went on to demonstrate how he had complete control over the phone, could access all the photos on her phone, see all the messages, contact list, location, etc.

Imagine what a scammer can do if he has access to this kind of data. He can create havoc in your life to control you, to blackmail you into doing things you do not want to. Let us now look at the various kinds of scams that occur on social media. It all starts with a friend request. The requestor generally has few friends, very few common friends and is based overseas. There are a limited number of pictures on his page. They are generally self-employed or in the construction business or oil and gas industry. The first step is to get connected to you. Once he is connected, it can take the form of any kind of scam. Let us look at a few of them.

1. The Dating Scam

They start innocently enough, the person will contact you either on the social media website or even send you an email trying to establish a connect, either of  being in school or college together or that they have met somewhere before. He may create a fake appealing profile so that you are prompted to accept the
request and begin a conversation. Once the scammer has you hooked, he gets friendly, chats with you every day and tries to build strong bonds. The chats may go on for weeks till the scammer feels confident that you trust him. He then accelerates the process. At times he offers you lots of compliments and kind words. You enjoy
hearing all of it. He also shares, intimate details of his own life saying, ―I have never shared this with anyone else but I’m only sharing this with you‖. You feel as if you two are close. All this while he also tries to find out your personal and financial situation. Single, career women, middle aged women, well to do women, divorced and widowed women are generally targeted. After a few chat sessions or emails, he starts asking for a small amount of money to cover some expenses – he is probably stuck in a foreign country and he has been robbed. He has no money to go back, or he has a family member in a medical condition in the hospital. He needs some money urgently and requests you for help. He needs you to wire transfer some amount of money to him as soon as possible. If you ever receive such a request for money, walk away.

2. Military romance.

You receive a friend request on social media. The person is wearing a military uniform. He claims to be from the Armed forces. They build up sympathy by giving you a story- Their wife passed away due to cancer few years ago or died of an accident etc. This may be followed by emails or chats which has a lot of military jargon and mention of titles and it makes you want to believe them. It sounds very authentic. They chat using messenger and build-up an emotional connect. This can go on for some time, maybe a month, month and a half. Then comes the request for money- maybe to set up an internet connection or to pay for the flights home or to add additional medical coverage or for retirement planning. Most of the times, these scammers work with one or more accomplices, who claim to be doctors and lawyers, so it sounds more authentic, and the victim tends to believe them. In many cases, military scams drag on for months or even years before the victim finally gets suspicious.

3. Intimate activity scam

You receive a friend request on a matrimonial website or on a social media website from someone who is generally living in either Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. He adds you as a friend on multiple social media websites. He calls you, builds up a rapport over time and gets emotionally close. One day he says – ―we should chat.‖ You are excited. At last, you will be able to see your friend. He tells you- ―I‘d love to see you.‖ You feel excited too. You connect, put your webcam on. Oh, what happened? His camera is not working! He gives you some story on why his camera is not working. He is happy seeing you. He appreciates you, showers compliments on you. You feel nice and warm and loved. You feel as if you have met your soulmate in life. He flatters you and with persistence, convinces you to partially remove your clothes, or to do something intimate. He then reveals his true identity and claims to have made a video recording of you revealing yourself. He threatens to share the video with the mutual friends online unless you send him money. You are shocked. You never expected this. You are forced to transfer the money. Once you do that, the cycle begins, demands increase until you finally refuse.

Read Part 2…..

The POSH Act 2013 [Sexual Harassment of Women at the workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013] came into being on the 9thDec 2013. Its still in its infancy. While the objective of the Act is commendable, it can be considered as a work in progress. Once complete, the Act would be robust and would be one of the best pieces of legislations globally on the topic of sexual harassment.  

“When you come to me with a problem, also bring me a solution”. This is what I learnt from my Manager in my early corporate years.  That’s precisely what I am going to do. Share the challenges and the solutions. 

1. Act is not elaborate enough. Definitions and procedures to be made elaborate. 

Sec 19 of the Act casts responsibility on the Employer to provide a safe working environment. What can be considered as a “safe working environment” or what does an employer do to create one, is not spelt out anywhere.

Section 11(3) of the Act mentions that the Internal Committee or the Local Committee shall have the same powers as are vested in a Civil Court under the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 when trying a suit in respect of the following matters-summoning and enforcing attendance of any person and examining him on oath, requiring discovery and production of documents and any other prescribed matter. 

One glance at the Code of Civil Procedure shows that it has 158 Sections in the Act followed by the First Schedule which includes 51 Orders. There is a total of 5 Schedules. The Code provides detailed guidelines on handling of civil matters. If you compare that with the POSH Act- it has only 30 sections in the Act and 14 Rules. 

The POSH Act needs to be elaborate and ought to prescribe detailed procedures and cover all aspects of the Act. It will help guide organisations. Most of the IC members do not have a legal background. Secondly, the due diligence and the rigour that is required in complaint handling may be missing as most of them carry out the responsibilities along with their other duties. 

Sec 11 of the Act states that the IC may proceed to conduct an inquiry as per the service rules and where there are no service rules applicable, in such manner as may be prescribed. 

The Handbook published by the Ministry of Women and Child development merely serves as a guide and an IC is left to devise its own procedure in complaint handling.

As a result, different companies follow their own methodology in complaint handling which may not always be correct.

 The need of the hour is to have a standard template for the policy and a defined procedure for handling complaints including parameters for granting reliefs, standard of proof required and factors to be taken into consideration to decide upon the quantum of punishment. 

If all these points are well defined, organisations would all tread on the same path.

2. Compliance of the Act not mandatory for organizations with less than 10 employees. 

Formation of POSH Policy, display of posters and training should be made mandatory for all organisations and penalties levied for noncompliance. Currently compliance is mandatory only for organisations with 10 or more employees. Making compliance mandatory for all organisations will help in creating greater awareness amongst all and ensure compliance even in the smallest firms. 

3. Act is not gender-neutral.

The title of the Act clearly states that the Act deals with sexual harassment of women at the workplace. Only a woman can file a complaint. The harasser can be a male, female or a person from the third gender. What should a person from the male gender or third gender do, if they are faced with sexual harassment at their workplaces? The Act provides no answers for them in such situations. 

Multinational companies may draft gender-neutral policies in line with their counterparts in other countries. This is optional. It is necessary to make the Act gender-neutral so that sexual harassment against all genders is covered. 

4. No provision for Mandatory audits every year. 

There is no provision for mandatory POSH Audits in the Act. All companies registered under the Companies Act must mention in their Director’s report that they are complying with the provisions of the POSH Act. What about other organisations which do not fall under the umbrella of the Companies Act? Do we have any checks on them? For most companies, POSH Compliance is a mere check box compliance. They may follow the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law. Implementing the Act lies heavily at the hands of the decision-makers of the organization. 

5. Under reporting of complaints

Many a times in preliminary stages, HR may intervene in complaints of sexual harassment and manage to resolve them before even a formal complaint is filed. Such cases would not be reported in the Annual Report. For every complaint reported, there are many more where the complainants have remained silent, or they have not been formally lodged. The figures reported may not always be correct. No one is happy to announce that they had many complaints of sexual harassment filed by the employees.

6. Lack of inspections

Sec 25 of the Act empowers the Government to request for information and makes a provision for inspections. Information that is generally sought include names of the IC members, their location, pictures that the notices have been put up, dates when training was carried out. There is not much information available on the number of inspections carried out under the POSH Act or what was its outcome.

7. Lack of information on noncompliance and penalties levied.  

There is no readily available information on the number of organisations that have been penalised for noncompliance. A lot of information is shrouded under the guise of confidentiality. Penalty may be levied, and information would only be available in the highest echelons of the organisation. Few matters which have gone to court, may get reported in the Media.  Let us ask ourselves- how many complaints of sexual harassment get filed in court? How many Appeals are admitted? The victim who is already undergoing trauma would rather leave the job and go elsewhere than get into litigation. 

8. Lack of awareness about the Act

Awareness needs to be increased with the help of cartoons, posters, radio jingles etc A Twitter handle in multiple languages dedicated to the POSH Act or social media posts or video films etc. would go a long way in creating awareness amongst all genders. 

9. Lack of centrally placed information on Local Committees in different cities. 

The Local committee accepts complaints of sexual harassment of women happening in organisations with less than 10 employees or where the complaint is against the employer. Is the information about the procedure for filing a complaint easily available to the common person? Does the victim who is a domestic help know where she to file the complaint? Sadly, none of this information is easily available. It needs to be available in multiple languages on a dedicated site and made easily accessible for it to reach the common people of all genders.  

10. No clarity on application of the Act on clubs and voluntary organisations. 

There are several voluntary organisations managed by honorary members like Lions Club, Rotary Club, BNI, other charitable organisations etc. Technically they may have less than 10 employees, but the members may run in hundreds or thousands. Does the Act apply to them? What happens if an incident of harassment takes place during one of the events organised by the club? What about religious institutions? Are they covered? The Act appears to state that they are. Are they aware that they need to be POSH Compliant? Have penalties been levied on them for noncompliance? 

The POSH Act currently is still in its infancy. The tiger cub is seen but not feared enough. For it to be effective it needs to undergo changes to mature it so that it can roar like a tiger and contribute to making a difference in the lives of all genders.