BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Police on Friday cautioned citizens against cyber criminals who send fake messages by SMS and WhatsApp asking electricity consumers to pay their bills or else their connection will be disconnected.
The scamsters are sending SMSes and WhatsApp messages like, “ Dear Consumer, Your Electricity power will be disconnected. Tonight at 9.30 pm by the office because your previous month's bill was not updated call urgently.”
The sentences in such fake messages are full of grammatical mistakes. There are full stops and capital letters in the wrong places. A senior police officer said fraudsters are sending fake SMSes to the consumers and are posing as call centre executives of electricity distribution companies once the victims call them. They ask consumers to download mobile applications or click on fraudulent links.
The fraudsters then obtain the citizens’ personal information including bank details to carry out fraudulent transactions. Cyber experts have advised electricity consumers to verify the sources of SMS, not to pay bills from untrustworthy sources, not to install any apps that allow an unsuspecting user to share his/her screen with others, not to make payments to private accounts, not to click on the link provided in the message or contact the mobile phone number shared by the scamsters.
Whenever telecom companies or electricity boards send an SMS, a consumer can always see the sender ID. One should exercise caution before responding to unpaid electricity messages which do not have sender IDs, said a police officer. Tata Power Southern Odisha Distribution Limited has also shared a similar fake message on its website.
The power distribution company’s officials have asked the consumers to be aware of such scams and report to them if they receive any fake messages relating to pending electricity bills.