Fraudsters use Covid booster jabs as bait to swindle money

Hyderabad: In these days when the Covid-19 pandemic, along with everything and anything related to it, are being used by fraudsters to swindle money from the gullible, the promise of a booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is the latest bait. With many keen on taking the booster jab on account of the third wave, […]

Hyderabad: In these days when the Covid-19 pandemic, along with everything and anything related to it, are being used by fraudsters to swindle money from the gullible, the promise of a booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is the latest bait.

With many keen on taking the booster jab on account of the third wave, fraudsters are out to dupe people in the guise of helping them get the shot. According to the police, crooks, posing as Health Department and municipal officials, are calling unsuspecting citizens to ‘help them book a slot’ for a booster dose. They are found to be targeting mostly senior citizens and home-makers who were unaware of the process to book a slot.

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While offering help, they tricked the victims into giving away personal details like details of the first and second vaccinations along with address, mobile number and other details. In the span of a few days, the victim would receive one more call, and confirm the personal and vaccination details. They would then tell the victim that they would receive a message on their registered mobile phone along with a One Time Password, which had to be shared to confirm the booking of the booster shot.

In some cases, the caller also asked victims to download a particular fake app on their mobile phone, mostly remote desktop apps, to help them in the booking process, an official said.

Scammers are targeting people in rural areas or elderly citizens who may not know about how UPI, remote desktop apps or internet banking work. A convincing story is narrated just to get the OTP for bank transfer. “They either fraudulently get the OTP from the victims or by sending phishing links, ask them to enter their details. Using this, money from their bank accounts is siphoned off,” police said.

“The first thing to note is that government officials will never call anyone to book vaccine slots. In fact, the provision for registering over a phone call does not exist. The only way to book a Covid vaccine is through the CoWIN platform,” police said.

One can either use the CoWIN or the Aarogya Setu app. Alternatively, those wanting the booster dose could directly visit any vaccine centre to register on the spot and get a jab, they said. “As far as OTP is concerned, no government official will ever ask for any OTP to book a vaccine slot. Also, all OTPs are meant to be kept as a secret and should not be shared to anyone,” police said.

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