Cybercrimes surge, cops warn against click scams

Ongole: Last week, a retired teacher Valavarti Gopalakrishna from Singarayakonda in Prakasam district was duped by a cyber criminal of Rs 1.70 lakh. The miscreant clean swept the bank balance of the victim, by the time the teacher rushed to the police station and got his account blocked.

Gopalakrishna received an SMS that the electricity connection of their house is about to be disconnected if they don't pay the dues immediately. He called the number mentioned in the message and spoke to a nice gentleman, who claimed to be from the head office of the electricity department, who apologised for accidentally remitting the payment he made already to another account. The imposter asked him to install the AnyDesk app to verify his credentials and pay just Rs 3 to get his electricity bill cleared. That's it. the lifetime savings of Goplakrishna disappeared in a few minutes.

Similar incidents are happening all over the state, and of course, all over the country, and criminals are using smartphones in the hands of the innocent public to work for them. Some receive an SMS or a message on WhattsApp or Telegram while others get a phone call from a number, but with the same information, unless they react immediately, they lose something valuable. After calling those numbers, the crooks are convincing the callers to share the OTPs or install apps from the play store or login into their accounts on phishing websites.

Cybercrimes are very hard to detect and investigate, and almost impossible to bring back the money the people lost, but the police can stop further transactions. They are recently registering complaints from victims of Aadhaar-enabled payments, which can be processed by OTPs or fingerprint authentication.

Malika Garg, Prakasam district SP, advised them not to fall prey to messages they receive on their mobile phone like insurance claims, gifts or various other claims promising heavy returns. She said that the culprits of cybercrimes can be anywhere in the world, and their investigation is very difficult.

The SP asked the public to go to the websites of the banks or companies to raise a complaint or request service through the customer care centre, but not call directly on the phone numbers they get on the Google search. She also alerted the public to be wary of loan apps and cheating like ATM card swapping. She informed that they are learning about the fraud with Aadhaar enabled payments system, using the cloned fingerprints of people collected through various sources, and advised people to enable the AePS only when they require it. Just like an emergency hour for treatment in emergencies, it is also crucial to call 1930 to register the cybercrime complaint and get their bank card and bank account blocked immediately after they observed the fraud, to save their money from further transactions, she advised.