Online scammers impersonating the Nilgiris district collector attempted to scam high-ranking officials from the district administration into purchasing online gift cards.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference, District Collector J.Innocent Divya said that a fake email account, claiming to be hers, had tried to target officials into purchasing gift cards from online retail stores. “The scammer would tell people who opened the email and wrote back outlining the amount of gift cards that the person should purchase,” said the collector.
After officials informed the collector of the attempted scam, a complaint was submitted to the Nilgiris district SP, V. Sasi Mohan. “We are attempting to trace the IP address of the person who has sent out the emails, and once arrested, the person would be booked under the relevant section of the Information Technology Act,” said the SP.
“The official email address of the Nilgiris collector is collrnlg@nic.in. If anybody gets any emails from any other email addresses claiming to be from the collector, please do not open it,” said the collector, who said that it was important that people were aware of cybercrime fraud and take appropriate steps to ensure that they do not become unwitting victims of such frauds.
“If people are even impersonating me, we can imagine how much of a menace this has become,” said Ms. Divya.
“The police’s advice to people is to not open any hyperlinks or QR codes received from any unknown email addresses or from mobile numbers. Hackers can even remotely monitor your device by tricking you into downloading applications on your phone, so we urge people to not open hyperlinks from unknown senders,” said the SP Sasi Mohan.
