A Twitter user has flagged a new style of scamming people – texting employees by pretending to be the CEO of their company. Shikhar Saxena, employee of online shopping platform Meesho, shared a screenshot of a WhatsApp message he received from a scammer.
The scammer texted Saxena by pretending to be the founder and CEO of Meesho, Vidit Aatrey. He asked Saxena to make a purchase on Paytm for a client, promising to reimburse him later. “I am currently on a conference call with a client and I need to provide this client with some gift. Can you confirm if you can make this purchase from Paytm? I will reimburse you,” the message from the con artist read.
Meesho employee Shikhar Saxena did not fall for the blatant scam but shared a screenshot of the exchange to warn others. “Latest scam in the startup world – message from the CEO,” he wrote while sharing the screenshot on the microblogging platform.
Reactions to the post were varied, but most people were amused by how easy it was to see through the scam.
“It’s not just the startup world. Even employees at established companies have received these messages from scamsters,” wrote one person in the comments section.
“I got this as an email,” another added. Some Twitter users also tagged the real Vidit Aatrey to make him aware of the scam being run in his name.
