In 2020, more than 100,000 residents of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were robbed of 5.6 billion rupees ($19 million), according to media reports. Victims of the scam were promised high profits – almost 13% – on investments from a Peshawar-based online investment company, only to see them disappear without a trace in November of the same year .
Tech founder Tariq says she believes the increase in scams is due to a combination of economic stress and the fact that there is rarely recourse for victims. About a month ago, Tariq heard about another scam: menacing loan sharks who prey on unsuspecting working-class women who borrow money to make ends meet.
“These women who were scammed knew what the risk was. They probably knew they were being scammed, but there’s really no other avenue available,” she said. “And they weren’t taking out loans for frivolous reasons, not to buy clothes or anything else. They were probably taking them because someone in their home was sick. So it’s this desperation, this exploitation that is in full swing right now. We also see this in the startup ecosystem, where startups experience poor conditions from fake investors.
And yet, says Tariq, no one is counting on the intervention of the police. “I don’t think the average person would even consider going to court for a moment,” she said. “And I think that’s also what the scammers are counting on. They know that no one will sue them.
The ZipTech scandal might have some sort of resolution, however.
One of the members of the Pakistani group PC Gamers, Khizer Ali Khan, happens to be a lawyer. After reading stories from angry ZipTech customers in April, Khan contacted a lawyer friend, Khaleeq Zaman, and suggested they take legal action. They offered to take on the case on a voluntary basis, and in one day more than 150 people asked for help. “People called me a savior,” Khan says. “It was overwhelming.”
On May 17, they sent Zippy a legal notice to his two stores in Karachi, his villa in Bahria Town area and his other residence in Sukkur, 230 miles from the city. All reviews have been returned. “We found out he had run away,” Zaman said. “The stores he opened were closed. And the residential addresses also returned legal notices indicating he no longer lived there.
