NEW DELHI: With the sudden increase in Covid cases across India due to the new Omicron variant, which is spreading quickly, citizens are now keen on taking a third vaccine or booster shot to develop immunity in their bodies to fight the disease. But scammers are taking advantage of the Omicron scare and have found a new way to make money by ‘helping’ people get a booster shot.
What is the new Covid vaccine scam all about
Scammers pretending to be government health officials are calling gullible citizens to book their booster shot. The scammers are mostly targeting senior citizens and other people who are eligible. Interestingly, the scammers are well-prepared to fool people. Talking about the modus operandi, a person claiming from the health department will call an elderly person and will request for personal details like vaccine dose details of first and second shots along with address, mobile number and other details.
Then after a few days, another call from another person claiming to be from the health department, is made to help the person book a booster shot. To make the call look original, personal details are confirmed and the scam caller convinces the person that they will receive a message on their registered phone number with an OTP. He or she will then ask for the OTP to confirm the booking of the booster shot. In other cases, the caller may also ask the victim to download a particular app on their phone, which is mostly remote desktop apps like AnyDesk or TeamViewer, to help them in the booking process.
Now, the problem is that OTP is mostly generated for the request money feature of UPI or it is also observed that the scammer already has the bank details of the victim in their database. If they don’t have the bank details, they may ask for the bank details and OTP to make payment and book the slot online. The OTP is simply asked to transfer money from the victim’s bank accounts either via UPI or internet banking.
Scammers are targeting people in rural areas or elderly citizens who may not know about how UPI, remote desktop apps or internet banking works. A convincing story is narrated just to get the OTP for bank transfer.
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How to stay safe from such scams
The first thing to note is that government officials will never call anyone to book vaccine slots. In fact, the provision for registering over a phone call doesn’t exist. The only way to book a Covid vaccine is through the CoWIN platform. You can either use the CoWIN desktop website or the Aarogya Setu app. Alternatively, you can directly visit any vaccine centre to register and get a vaccine.
As far as OTP is concerned, no government official will ever ask for any OTP to book a vaccine slot. Also, all OTPs are meant to be kept as a secret and should not be shared to anyone.
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