The timely intervention by the Ernakulam Rural police helped a job aspirant recover money that he had lost after falling prey to an online job fraud attempt.
He had registered his name with an online firm while searching for a job. Following this, he received a call with a direction to log into a portal for which he was to be provided a log in id and password.
On logging in, he was directed to a payment gateway for the payment of a registration fee of ₹25. However, despite repeated attempts the payment failed following which he contacted the firm, which asked him to use another card. In between, he received an SMS alert about an amount being debited from his account. When he again contacted the company, he was asked to forward the message and he did so but after editing out the balance amount in his account.
However, the company insisted on getting the message unedited and this raised his suspicion following which he promptly alerted the police.
K. Karthik, District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural), said online job frauds were increasingly being reported and warned people not to share One Time Passwords at any cost as that would lead to loss of money from accounts.
