After reading the news, you can avoid getting caught in the clutches of cyber criminals. Many people have become their victims and are later approaching the police. Many such cases have come up in NCR.
Be careful while applying for passport. If you are going or thinking of applying for a passport, then this news can be useful for you. After reading the news, you can avoid getting caught in the clutches of cyber criminals. Many people have become their victims and are later approaching the police. Many such cases have come up in Ghaziabad. Therefore, the Regional Passport Officer has appealed to the people to apply for passport carefully.
Passports of 14 districts of Western Uttar Pradesh are made at Ghaziabad Passport Centre. About 2200 people apply for passport every day. Some people go to cafes and apply and some people apply themselves. The cafe owner knows which websites are genuine and which are fake. Therefore, they do not fall into the clutches of cyber criminals, but those who apply themselves and are less computer friendly, they definitely fall into their clutches. Complaints like this have reached Ghaziabad Police.
This is how people get trapped
Cyber criminals have created a website with a name similar to the government website. Like India Passport, Online Passport India, Passport India Portal, Passport India, Passport Seva and Apply Passport and many more such fake websites have been created. While applying for passport, people search websites and they do not know which one is fake and which one is authorized. If you apply through a fake website, the fraudsters take complete details of the applicants.
After taking the details, they apply for passport but in general category the fee for passport application is Rs 1500 but they charge Rs 4000-5000. At the same time, login ID and password are also not disclosed to the applicants. In such a situation, if the applicants have to reschedule their appointment, they face problems.
On contacting, they again charge two to three thousand rupees in the name of rescheduling. They do not allow applicants to work if they do not pay. Since they charge only two to four thousand rupees more than the applicant and those whose work gets done in the first time, they do not even complain to the police.
Apply only on authorized website
Regional Passport Officer IFS Anuj Swarup said that the authorized website for passport is https://www.passportindia.gov.in. Applicants should apply only by visiting this website. Apart from this there is no official website. Therefore, apply for passport with caution to avoid falling into the clutches.
Operation is done from other states
Kanishk Gaur, cyber security expert and founder of public policy think tank Future Foundation, says that this is called phishing. This type of crime is happening in many states including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh. To avoid this, apply only on the government website.
