The ₹15,000 'Experience Kit': India's Fake Resume Industry, Exposed
1 in 6 candidates in India misrepresents their experience. Inside the Telegram groups, shadow companies, and BGV loopholes fuelling India's fake resume epidemic.
Arshia Kaur, founder of Tint Cosmetics, hired what she thought was a Head of Marketing. The candidate had a polished resume, two years of experience at a mid-sized D2C brand, and salary slips to prove it. The salary slips were made in Microsoft Excel. She only caught it because one of them showed the candidate had worked 31 out of 31 days in the month. No weekends. No holidays.
That's how most people get caught: a small number that doesn't add up. Not a forensic audit. Not a specialist BGV firm. A Sunday that someone forgot to subtract.
What you actually get for ₹15,000
A basic "experience kit" is the term used in the Telegram groups and WhatsApp networks where these are sold. It includes everything a candidate needs to pass a standard HR review:
- Offer and appointment letters on professional letterhead, with forged signatures of fictitious HR managers
- Three to six months of salary slips, with realistic deductions for Provident Fund and Professional Tax
- A relieving letter and experience certificate confirming the tenure
- A functional HR email address to handle verification requests
That's the ₹7,500 to ₹12,000 tier. At ₹15,000 to ₹25,000, you get a shadow company with its own registration, a dedicated email domain, and a real person on the other end who responds to reference check queries. At ₹35,000 to ₹60,000, the premium tier adds forged Form 16s, manipulated bank statements, and telephonic verification.
The numbers are worse than you think
According to the AuthBridge Annual Trend Report for 2024, roughly 15 to 17% of all resumes submitted in India contain verified discrepancies. In high-volume IT recruitment cycles, that number reaches 30%. The NASSCOM Talent Integrity Survey found that employment fraud cases spiked 44% compared to the previous year.
The shadow company ecosystem
Shadow companies are entities set up purely to be listed as a former employer. Their names are designed to pass a quick glance. Instance Software Solutions. JVS Infotech. CBK Infotech. They're registered businesses with websites, HR email addresses, and some have LinkedIn company pages with stock-photo employees.
In 2024, a Bengaluru-based operation was busted for providing forged letters and live HR call support to over 200 professionals who were, at the time of the bust, employed at major MNCs. Accenture and TCS both conducted large internal audits resulting in thousands of terminations after discovering fraudulent credentials.
How to actually catch it
The most reliable check in India is EPFO UAN verification. Every salaried employee with PF contributions has a Universal Account Number, and the EPFO records show exactly which employers made contributions and when. Form 26AS, the tax credit statement, is the second layer, showing TDS deducted by employers, linked to PAN.
After that: domain age. A company that's been operating for five years with a website registered three months ago is not a five-year-old company. And then there's the Arshia Kaur method: look at the salary slip, count the working days, and see if someone forgot that July has Sundays.
What this means for your agency
The agencies that surface this most reliably do it through interviews, not paperwork. A candidate's answers don't match the depth of experience on their resume. The conversation goes shallow too quickly. This is what good AI screening should flag: not just keyword mismatches, but profiles that don't hold together under scrutiny.