The Facebook page looked perfect—professional photos of children on fashion runways, glowing testimonials from parents, and a name that screamed opportunity: "India Kids Model." For Vidushi (name changed), a mother from Assam scrolling through social media, it seemed like destiny. Finally, this was the breakthrough that her nine-year-old daughter and she had been waiting for.
She didn’t know an elaborate trap was awaiting her.
When Vidushi clicked on the Facebook ad, the fraudsters knew they had found their next victim. For a while now, they have perfected the art of digital deception—cloning legitimate agencies, stealing portfolio images, and constructing elaborate financial schemes.
It’s a web of digital fraud that has been systematically unraveling the dreams of hundreds of Indian parents.
At first, everything seemed genuine. When Vidushi first contacted the agency, they followed standard industry protocol—requesting sample photos and "approving" her daughter for an audition in Jaipur. When she expressed her inability to travel, they offered what they called a "parallel operation": an online scheme promising returns of over a lakh.
Dreams Turned Into Despair
Watching the promised Jaipur audition slip away, Vidushi clung to a new hope. If her daughter couldn’t walk the fashion ramp, perhaps the agency’s online investment could mean some money.
The promise of easy money through a seemingly legitimate and reputable business felt like a consolation prize— not the glamorous future she had imagined for her daughter but perhaps a practical one. Vidushi signed up.
She was added to a Telegram group where she received instructions to make minimal investments—just Rs 100 or Rs 200—to a UPI ID. To her surprise, she received double her investment each time. The scheme was working, or so it seemed.
Vidushi began investing larger sums, but this time, the promised returns never came.
"At first, they built trust by delivering small returns," Vidushi recalled, her voice filled with regret. "But once I invested a larger amount, everything changed. They kept making excuses claiming that it was a technical issue that would be resolved soon, and then they just disappeared."
The mother of the 9-year-old was blocked from the Telegram group, the UPI ID vanished, and there was no way to contact anyone from the so-called agency. By then, Vidushi had lost close to Rs 80,000 of her savings.
Vidushi turned to the internet in hopes of finding someone who could help. Through her search, she managed to connect with Prashant Sharma, the director of the legitimate India Kids Model agency based in Chandigarh. Sharma broke the unfortunate news to Vidushi: She had been scammed.
One Real Agency, Many Fake Pages
Sharma has watched his company's reputation become an unwitting accomplice in this fraud. "The fraudsters have been using our old address, one we closed down back in 2019, to give their page a sense of authenticity," he told Decode.
He said Vidushi was just one of the many parents deceived by fraudsters using his agency’s name.
Sharma has been in the fashion industry since 2010, and his agency—part of Creativators, the parent company that organises fashion shows for brands—began working in kids’ modeling in 2013. He claimed that his agency has always maintained a strict policy of not charging parents for participation.
"We don't do cash-based schemes," Sharma emphasised, frustration evident in his voice. "Our focus has always been on creating real opportunities, like tie-ups with malls for kids' shows."
Despite prominent warnings plastered across his agency's social media pages, the phone calls keep coming—five to seven each week from devastated parents who've fallen victim to the impersonators. The situation grew so dire that Sharma temporarily suspended his operations as complaints flooded in.
The ripple effects have been severe. "We have had police verification at our office several times because people think it's our agency behind the scam," he explained.
The victims, he noted, are predominantly homemakers targeted through Facebook. “They are often eager to give their children a chance in modeling but don’t always see the red flags,” he said.
Frustrated by the impersonation scam, Sharma filed a complaint with the Chandigarh cyber police last year. “But nothing came of it,” he said. “They closed the case, claiming the Facebook pages weren’t based in India.”
It Starts With Facebook Ads
The scale of these modeling scams emerged in stark detail through a recent case in Delhi's Dwarka where the victim lost Rs 5.22 lakhs. Yogesh Kumar, head constable at Dwarka police station, who investigated the case, unraveled a carefully orchestrated scheme that began innocuously enough on Facebook.
"The victim saw an ad for kids' modeling opportunities and submitted their child's photos, believing it to be legitimate," Kumar told Decode. The victim was then told that the shortlisting process would happen on Telegram.
On Telegram, participants were given tasks such as liking, rating, and subscribing to various content. They were told that the person who scored the highest would win equivalent cash rewards, and their children would be selected for modeling contracts. “The main aim was to divert them into the scam,” he added.
The cybercrime team’s investigation revealed the extent of the operation. “When we checked the cyber portal, there were 197 complaints from across India about similar scams. We managed to arrest two individuals from Nangloi, both in their early twenties,” Kumar noted.
But they were merely foot soldiers — account holders who had rented out their bank accounts to the scammers. Their accounts were used to receive and transfer the stolen money.
"The scale is staggering," Kumar revealed.
"In just two days—May 16th and 17th—over Rs 4 crore flowed through their current accounts, which were specifically created for money laundering with no transaction limits," he said.
The investigation also uncovered that the scammers were using Facebook accounts linked to Microsoft-based email IDs, which were not registered in India. “We have requested Facebook to block these accounts, but tracing the masterminds remains challenging,” he admitted.
The scammers' attention to detail was meticulous. The Facebook page that deceived the victim in Dwarka operated under the name ‘Lotus Star Kids’. Since its creation in 2021, the page has undergone two name changes and even used the outdated office address of Sharma’s legitimate modeling agency, which is no longer operational.
The Facebook page lists the outdated address of the legitimate agency
Sharma, who has watched this shadow industry from the front lines, exposed another layer of sophistication: the strategic use of planted success stories within Telegram groups. Within the Telegram groups, fraudsters plant “dummy” members who share fake success stories, crafting an illusion of legitimacy that draws unsuspecting parents in.
“They post messages about the supposed ‘profits’ they have earned, encouraging new members to invest larger amounts. But the red flags are there—such as inconsistencies in their domain name and the UPI ID details,” he said, adding that these are details many victims overlook in their excitement and trust.
The victims were drawn into Telegram groups where the actual scam took place
Missing The Red Flags
For Prashant Sharma, each day brings another desperate call from another devastated parent. His response has become a painful routine: direct them to the cybercrime helpline and watch the cycle continue unbroken. “These scams are sophisticated and keep evolving,” he noted. “There are three or four such pages, constantly changing names to evade detection.”
The agency director told Decode that the fraudulent pages also used names similar to his agency, like “Visual Kids Model” and “FKM Future Kids Model”, and even lifted photos from his website’s media gallery to lend the scam an appearance of legitimacy.
Decode discovered that the “Visual Kids Model” page was initially created in 2021 under the name ‘Kim Chung’ and had undergone at least four name changes in the past year, now operating as “India’s Biggest Kids Talent”. Similarly, the “FKM Future Kids Model” page was first created in 2018 as ‘Its_alexabreganza’, and is currently using the name “FKM Future Kids Model”. The 'Page transparency' section of the Facebook accounts indicates that they are managed from Vietnam.
Decode flagged the Facebook pages as fraudulent, yet they remain online, albeit inactive for a few months. Currently, Meta is conducting an investigation into the issue.
Fake pages masquerading as legitimate ones
The timing couldn’t be worse for Sharma’s modeling agency. Still reeling from the pandemic’s impact on their business, these scams have been a second blow. “Our business was already on a downslide due to the pandemic, and now, these scams are making it worse. It is unfortunate that people are losing so much money because someone is exploiting the credibility we worked hard to build,” he said.
Despite his efforts to help victims navigate the aftermath, Sharma feels increasingly powerless against the fraudsters' evolving tactics. “It is disheartening to see the harm these scams are causing, not just financially but emotionally. Parents come to me seeking answers, and there’s often little I can do beyond guiding them to report it,” he said.
His warning to parents: Be vigilant, and always double-check the legitimacy of any page promising cash rewards or high returns in exchange for participation. The real cost, he knows, is measured not just in rupees, but in shattered dreams and broken trust.
The Hidden Cost of Scams: Emotional Scars
For Sarita (name changed), a homemaker from Odisha, a single click crumbled her world.
Like Vidushi, she was drawn in by promises of exposure and contracts for her seven-year-old son. The Facebook ad that she had stumbled upon seemed like a golden opportunity.
When the scammers blocked her from their Telegram group, Sarita took the only action she believed might help. "I filed a report to the cybercrime authorities, I followed up," she recalled, her voice tinged with a mixture of desperation and resignation. "But it felt like I was talking to a wall. Months have passed, and I have heard nothing."
The financial wound was deep—nearly Rs 1 lakh stolen from her family's carefully guarded savings. Yet the emotional scar ran even deeper.
With little hope of retrieving her money, she kept the incident secret, fearing her family might reprimand her. “I feel like I failed my family,” she confided, with an unmissable guilt in her voice.
Cyber psychologist Nirali Bhatia offered a profound dissection of these digital traps. "These aren't mere financial frauds," she told Decode. "They are sophisticated psychological operations that target the most vulnerable and pure human instinct—a parent's boundless desire to create opportunities for their child."
Bhatia highlighted the unique vulnerability of homemakers, who are often unfairly stereotyped as less digitally aware. "The perception that they lack awareness because they don't frequently step outside is not just incorrect—it's dangerous," she emphasised. "The truth is, these scams can happen to anyone."
The most insidious weapon in these frauds is not the financial mechanism, but emotional manipulation. The judgment victims face from family members can be more devastating than the monetary loss. "The damage to self-worth can be profound," Bhatia noted.
The online world demands absolute vigilance, she warned. "Wanting the best for your child is natural," she said. "But in the digital landscape, we must exercise zero trust. Even sharing a child's photograph can have unforeseen, potentially catastrophic consequences."
The guilt of unknowingly putting their child’s safety at risk can weigh heavily on victims, compounding the trauma of financial loss, she added.
For parents like Vidushi and Sarita, the pain lingers long after the scam is over. And the question that won’t leave their minds: “What if I hadn’t clicked that link?"
