Imagine being 18, living in a small town in Haryana, and telling your friends you run a “startup” that rakes in ₹20 lakh a month. Sounds like a dream, right? But in Nuh, Haryana, this dream is built on something far from innovation…it’s built on deception.

The New Hustle: Fake It Till You Make It (Literally)

Let’s be honest, most of us have seen those too-good-to-be-true deals on OLX or Facebook Marketplace. A bike for half its price, a phone that’s “urgent to sell.” You message, you negotiate, you’re convinced. The seller drops a UPI ID, you pay, and then… nothing. The seller vanishes, your money is gone, and you’re left wondering how you fell for it.

Now, imagine this isn’t just a one-off. In Nuh, it’s a full-blown industry. Groups of teenagers are running these scams like clockwork—dozens of deals a day, every day. They use WhatsApp, Telegram, even AI tools like ChatGPT to sound convincing. Some even set up fake websites on Shopify to look legit.

The Dark Side of “Entrepreneurship”

Here’s the wild part: these young people are incredibly resourceful. They know how to build trust, how to market, how to close a deal, everything a good founder does. The difference? There’s no product, no service, just a promise that disappears as soon as you pay.

Their margins? Better than most real startups. No inventory, no customer service, just pure profit. It’s a D2C model, alright, but here, D2C stands for “Deceit to Consumer.”

Why Is This Happening?

It’s easy to blame the scammers, but let’s look deeper. These are smart, ambitious kids in a place with few opportunities. They see the world idolizing startup founders and unicorns, but for them, the fastest way to “success” is a shortcut. Why sweat it out building something real when you can make more, faster, by faking it?

The Real Cost: Trust

Every scam like this does more than steal money, it steals trust. It makes people afraid to buy online, suspicious of every deal, hesitant to try something new. And that’s a tragedy, because trust is the foundation of every real business, every real relationship.

So, What’s the Difference Between a Startup and a Scam?

Is it the product? The process? Or just the promise that you’ll actually deliver? In Nuh, the line is blurry. The skills are the same—the intent is not.

A Mirror to Our Ecosystem

This isn’t just a story about crime, t’s a mirror. It shows us what happens when our brightest young minds feel that the only way up is through a shortcut. It’s a warning that if we don’t value honesty and hard work, we’ll end up with more scam artists than entrepreneurs.

If fraud becomes the fastest way out of poverty, our startup dreams have bigger problems than funding or growth metrics. Maybe it’s time we ask ourselves: what kind of success stories do we really want to celebrate.

ALSO READ : IIM Kashipur’s Placement Email Sparks Debate