Five things to take away from Soumendra Padhi's web series Jamtara

A poster of Jamtara. Picture/Netflix

Netflix original series Jamtara is based on real-life events that took place in a village in Jharkhand. Directed by Soumendra Padhi, who also gave us Manoj Bajpayee-starrer Budhia Singh - Born to Run (2016), Jamtara is a crime drama that gives you a close look at phishing scams that rattled a town to its very core. With a cop close on the fraudsters' heels and a politician wanting in on the scam, the web series opens our eyes to the world of phishing.

Here are five things that everyone should take away from Jamtara:

Getting conned is easy

And we can't stress this enough. All it requires these days is a phone and the smarts to fool people. Online fraud, phishing scams have become too commonplace and losing your money to fraudsters is as easy as it will ever be. That's what Jamtara tries to teach you.

It's better to be safe than sorry

It's never a good idea to divulge your personal bank account information to anyone on the phone. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are a hundred and one ways to scam people online and offline, and it's always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting your hard-earned money.

Conning doesn't require a tech degree

If you thought the smartest fraudsters come with the highest degrees, you've got another think coming. As shown in Jamtara, most of the youngsters involved in scamming people were school and college dropouts. They just had the 'acumen to dupe unsuspecting people and siphon off lakhs, if not crores of rupees, from accounts,' as director Soumendra Padhi says.

It can happen in small towns too

Jamtara is based on events that took place in the village Jamtara in Jharkhand, which is considered to be India's phishing hub. So if you thought scams and fraud happened only in cities and only with those who had loads of money, that's not true at all.

Phishing is considered to be a lucrative business

"I was shocked to see their lifestyle. Easy money has afforded them an extravagant lifestyle. Most of them live in bungalows fancier than that of Amitabh Bachchan; they all have the latest state-of-the-art gadgets too," claims Padhi. Who knew making fraudulent calls could be this easy?

Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also download the new mid-day android and iOS apps to get latest updates