Last week, a senior reader I know called me and identified himself as an officer of the Pension Directorate and said that I have called you for the renewal of your life certificate. In that call, I told him my full name, pensioner payment number, Aadhaar number, address, all correct, and he said that I will verify it and you will receive an OTP. I remembered that you had written in your articles not to share OTP with anyone, and he came to my phone and said that I did not receive the OTP, then he asked me to call you and asked if I would be in any trouble if I gave him the OTP. I asked him to send me that OTP, in which it was written about 27000 money transfers, which I immediately told him. Such social engineering cyber crimes are increasing a lot, this is just a new type of it. I had written about this at length once before, which you should definitely read.
While searching the internet for such cyber crimes, I came across a newspaper alert issued by the State Bank of India and the Lucknow police, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. According to this, pensioners across India have been receiving many calls from cyber criminals regarding the renewal of their life certificates, and many senior citizens have fallen victim to it and lost their valuable savings. The surprising thing is that these criminals have private information like the pensioner’s full name, pension payment number, Aadhaar number, address, date of retirement, email address, pension amount, etc., using which they deceive them by saying that they are calling from the Pension Department or the Pension Directorate and gain their trust or by threatening them that if they do not cooperate, their pension amount will stop coming or their pension account will be frozen. Another related scam involves pensioners receiving an SMS, email or WhatsApp message, in which they are told that they can digitally obtain their life certificate by sitting at home on the website http://jeevanpraman.online. If you click on that link, your smartphone or computer may be hacked or the personal information you provide on that website may be used by cyber criminals to cheat you.
To protect yourself from Life Certificate fraud :-
- Always follow the principle of ‘zero trust, patience and confirmation’ for all digital transactions and respond only after verification.
- Do not share any personal information or OTP if you receive a call from any pension or pension directorate department.
- For any queries regarding life certificate, contact your bank or the official pension office (CPAO) website.
- Do not click on any link sent by strangers or scan any QR code or install any app.
- Never share sensitive personal information like Aadhaar or PAN details or your bank account or credit/debit card details with strangers.
If you are a victim of life certificate fraud :-
Immediately call the cyber helpline 1930 or file a complaint at cybercrime.gov.in or the nearest police station. If you have shared your Aadhaar card information or a copy, block your Aadhaar card on the Aadhaar website or mAadhaar app. If you think your device is infected with malware, take a backup and then format it or do a factory reset.
Legal remedies available to victims of life certificate fraud :-
You can file a criminal case at your nearest cyber or general police station under the following legal sections or the sections suggested by the police based on your case:
- Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 303 (Theft), 319 (Punishment for cheating by impersonation), 336 and 318 (Cheating), Section 323 (Unlawful extraction of data), Section 329 (Criminal trespass), Section 338 (Forgery), Section 337 (Punishment for forgery/forgery), and Section 340 (Use of forgery/forged document).
- Information Technology (IT) Act 2000/08 Section 43 (Penalty and compensation for damage to computer, computing device etc.), Section 65 (Wrecking computer), Section 66 (Punishment for computer related offences – person committing data theft, spreading virus to system, destroying data, hacking, or denying access to computer or network to an authorised person), Section 66C (which provides for penalty for identity theft and fraudulent or dishonest use of a person’s identity information) and Section 66D (Punishment for fraud committed by impersonation using computer resources).