THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After a brief lull, incidents of online frauds targeting KSEB consumers are on the rise. Several consumers who make the payment online have complained of receiving SMS and phone calls asking them to pay the power bills, which they had already paid. Some messages even warn of disconnecting the power supply.
Anil Kumar Pandala, a senior IT professional and former managing director of Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company Ltd, regularly pays his power bills via KSEB’s Web Self Services Quick Pay mode. He told TNIE that after making payment through the registered online site of KSEBL, he received an SMS stating that the previous month’s payment does not reflect in the system.
“I was confident that I had made the payments towards my bills. The caller who spoke in broken English demanded that I should not interrupt him while speaking. He informed me that he will send the Google Pay account. Since I smelled a rat, I didn’t entertain him further. But what surprised me was the way these fraudsters get hold of our mobile phone numbers immediately after we make the payment”, he said. This is not an isolated incident as another consumer based in Kottayam also got a similar SMS. The message he received stated that power supply will be disconnected ‘at 9:30pm tonight’ as the previous month’s bill was not updated. Fortunately, he also did not fall for the trap.
KSEB chief engineer (IT, Customer Relations & Centrally Aided Projects) Hareesan Mottammal told TNIE that his team is examining the issue. He said there were similar incidents in the past, which they had reported to the cyber police.“The online payment has to be made only through the KSEBL’s Web Self Services’ Quick Pay mode. We will examine if there is any lacuna in our quick pay mode”, he said.