Police cautions residents on frauds relating to vaccination drive

The Haryana Police has advised city residents to remain cautious of fraudsters and criminals, who may try to dupe them on the pretext of registering for Covid 19 vaccine in view of the mass inoculation drive being carried out by the health department

The Haryana Police has advised city residents to remain cautious of fraudsters and criminals, who may try to dupe them on the pretext of registering for Covid 19 vaccine in view of the mass inoculation drive being carried out by the health department.

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Navdeep Singh Virk, additional director-general of police (law and order), Haryana, issued an advisory on Saturday, stating that cyber criminals never run out of new ideas to cash in on a situation of crisis. Such scammers may defraud citizens through phone calls, emails or even by WhatsApp messages, asking them their details for getting themselves registered for the vaccine.

Referring to the modus operandi of fraudsters, he said that they are making phone calls to people, asking them to register their names for the vaccination drive. With this, they are collecting sensitive personal information, such as Aadhaar number and email in the name of Covid-19 vaccine registration. Along with these details, they may also ask to authenticate Aadhaar by sharing an OTP. The moment OTP is given, money is siphoned off from the Aadhaar-linked bank account.

Virk advised the people to exercise caution and not to entertain any phone calls regarding the vaccine registration. “Don’t share your personal data with anyone and use only the government health department approved/issued mobile application for Covid-19 vaccination,” he said.