The Danger of Working On-Line.
This edition of Ken’s Korner’s Newsletter covers January 2025.

Tock and Qadatra
I do a lot of work on-line by remote. In the IT business it is a necessity. But it is not without risks. Unscrupulous people are everywhere and there is a scam-a-minute floating around on the web. I recently came across two such operations.

Tock and Qadatra are real companies. Tock is a company that provides reservation services for restaurants and resorts. Qatatra does data analytics and business insights. But these offers were from an organization that only used the company name. They were not part of the actual company.

Warning signs
In both cases I received an unsolicited contact from someone who claimed to have gotten my name from someone else whose name I didn’t recognize. That made me a little suspicious, but it wasn’t exactly a “red flag”, more of an orange banner. So, I accepted the invitation to a “training period” during which I would be paid.

All the communication was through WhatsApp. That suggests that this is not a US based operation since most plans in the US have text messaging, (SMS). These days, most plans have unlimited text messaging. WhatsApp is popular in places where people have limited or no text messaging.

That is not a showstopper. There are legitimate operations that are based outside of the US. Not all offshore operations are scams, and not all US based operations are legitimate. Not a “red flag”, just another orange banner.

I asked if this was a third-party operation, or would I be working directly for Tock? She assured me that I would be working for Tock. As I mentioned before, Tock is a legitimate company that provides restaurant and resort booking services in many countries around the globe. I checked with Tock and found that they were not hiring for any positions at that time. Still not “red flag” yet. Field offices sometimes do not communicate effectively with the home office. Just another orange banner.

Marching on
So, I proceeded with my training period during which I was processing reviews of some dining establishments. It seemed a little odd to be reviewing restaurants and other eateries that I had never visited. Using auto generated reviews that were highly generalized and always positive also seemed a little abnormal. But the pictures of the food looked delicious, and the settings looked very luxurious.

As I completed my “tasks” my earnings kept growing. When I completed a set of tasks, I would let my contact know and get a new set of “tasks” to complete. I became an official employee. I had my login to my “work desk” and during company hours I would complete my tasks.

While my earnings are listed in US dollars, the company pays the employees with Ethereum. That was not a problem for me. I accept many of the digital currencies and Ethereum works for me. I decided to transfer some of my earnings to my Coinbase account. I just wanted to see if that would work. It did and within a few minutes the funds were in my account. This was beginning to look promising.

Then I got a surprise. I got one of the “advanced tasks”. I was informed that these “advanced tasks” are very rare and assigned randomly by the system. These pay more than the regular tasks, but they take your current earnings down below zero and you cannot proceed with a negative balance. I would have to put money into my account in order to continue working.

That was a big “red flag”. I work for pay. I don’t pay to work. Despite assurances from Emily that I would be able to withdraw the funds as soon as I completed the advanced task, I hit the brakes hard. A panic stop so-to-speak. No amount of encouraging or overused trite phrases about needing to spend money to make money would get me to send them one cent. I was not swayed by lectures on investing to get a bigger return in the future. I have already invested money in my equipment and time.

All those orange banners now seemed like red flags and the need to give them money to continue was an absolute non-starter. When they asked me for money my Spidey sense started tingling and I was done with this deal.

I searched online and found that other people had also been in this position. Only they did send money into the system in hopes of a future payout that they didn’t receive. Instead, they continued completing their tasks only to get another advanced task right away. Oh, you are so lucky they were told. You just need to send in more money, then you will get a really big payout. At first, they just had to send in a small amount of money, under a hundred dollars. But each new advance task had a bigger price tag. Soon they found themselves thousands of dollars in the hole and with no way to recoup any of their money.

Repeat the lesson.
While I was still engaged with Tock, I got a similar offer from another company called Qadatra. Being a little slow on the uptake I don’t always learn my lesson the first time around. Sometimes I need to repeat the lesson to really get it to sink in.

My experience with Qadatra was very much like my experience with Tock. My contact was named Patrica. Again, it was an unsolicited contact that claimed to have gotten my name from someone else. I didn’t recognize the referral but there are many people that I have met in passing and it could have been someone that I just didn’t remember. So, once again I proceeded to chase the almighty dollar.

Once again, all communications are through WhatsApp. Payments are made using Ethereum, and all work is done online from remote. The work or “tasks” amounted to posting auto generated reviews and getting an occasional “advanced task”.

There were a few differences from my experience with Tock. Here I was reviewing various products from online sales. Reviewing products that I had never seen, or in many cases I had never even heard of. That seemed strange. My contact, Patricia had a better mastery of the English language, but it was obvious from the conversations that I was dealing with someone from another culture and likely in another country.

After investing a few hours doing these “product reviews” I decided to “test the waters” and see if I could collect some of my earnings. The process was much the same as with Tock and I was able to transfer a portion of my earnings from my work account to my Coinbase account. The funds arrived withing a few minutes. Easy money, although I could not see how this could possibly be of any real benefit to anybody. I was starting to feel pretty good about this regardless of all those orange banners.

Then it happened. Just like with Tock, I got one of those advanced tasks. My balance went negative and to continue and get the promised big payout I would have to put money into this system. Once again, that same situation came up and once again it was a big red flag.

I have ceased all communications with both Tock and Qadatra. I did not answer their inquiries and after a while they stopped trying to contact me. I suppose that means I quit. Although I suspect that if I came back and put money into their system, they would gladly welcome me back.

Some good news.
As it turned out I managed to walk away with some of their money and I lost only a few hours of my time. That was a very good feeling!

We can learn several things from these events. Several old adages can be reinforced.

• When something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
• When an online acquaintance asks for money, be suspicious, be hesitant and be cautious.
• There is no more satisfying experience than scamming a scammer.

Be careful out there.

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