Bhubaneswar: After the recent reports of cyber criminals duping citizens posing as Army officials, the Odisha Police Tuesday came up with a set of advisories for the citizens on ways to avert such fraud.
The advisory said that many cyber criminals are now approaching the smartphone users posing as Army personnel. It claimed that several used cell phones and cars are now being offered at attractive prices online to woo the netizens and dupe them.
According to the police, many second-hand sales platforms and mobile applications are now being used to target the gullible customers besides targeting the mobile wallets to loot the people.
The advisory notice said, “General public is advised not to believe in fake ads floated on OLX/Quickr and other social media. Criminals posing as Army officers/staff uniform services give ads to sell mobiles, cards, bikes and various electronic gadgets at cheaper rates and extract money from the victims as advance payments through delivery charges.”
The police have asked the online users to never deposit money in the unknown bank accounts/Paytm accounts without physically verifying the products displayed in the ads. It has been advised to verify the genuineness of the seller and never believe in the words of the unknown persons over phone.
“In case of vehicles displayed in the Olx/Quickr ads, check them physically. Don’t go out of the state to verify the vehicle. Also, verify the phone numbers of the caller, whether they belong to concerned state through shaplus caller info app and also bank account IFSC codes from internet,” it said.
The department also said that the netizens should never make any payment while communicating with strangers over SMS/WhatsApp unless they meet the person physically before the transaction takes place through websites or mobile apps.
“If someone is selling a product and asks you as a buyer to transfer some fraction of money as a token amount or registration amount, don’t fall into the trap,” the advisory said. The police also advised people to discourage low cost offers made by persons from other states.
This comes after reports of such frauds were highlighted by this newspaper besides other reports on new cyber fraud.
