Cyber Crime
That SOS Message From Your Teacher On Facebook Is Fake: Two Educationists Targeted in Kolkata
KOLKATA: After cheating senior state bureaucrats and top police officers, Mewat cyber gangs have targeted Kolkata’s educationists with a similar tactic: creating fake Facebook pages in their names and soliciting funds from those on their friend lists. According to police, these gangs primarily operate out of Bharatpur and Alwar area.
In the last week, prominent educationalists Pabitra Sarkar and Debnarayan Sarkar have filed complaints against fake Facebook pages created in their names by the accused and asked their social media friends for Rs 10,000 in assistance.
In the first case, an unidentified person attempted to defraud people by sending messages to Pabitra Sarkar’s friends and requesting money through a fake Facebook account. When his friends noticed that the word “urgent” was misspelt as “argent,” they informed him. “On September 9, one of my JU students inquired as to whether I had created a new Facebook account. I investigated and discovered the forgery. My friends who received the money message complained about the phoney profile. When I clicked on the fake account link shared by my students, it had already been deactivated,” Pabitra explained.
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Debnarayan learned of the fraud around midnight on September 5. “I learned that the accused had requested Rs 10,000 from a lawyer named Gopal Chandra Mondal. I was taken aback because I was not on Facebook at the time. I opened an account five years ago, but it is still inactive. One of my friends told me that the lawyer had called him to find out why I needed such a small sum. When I called him, he admitted that he had doubts from the beginning. I went to the cyber crime cell in Lalbazar with him and filed a complaint,” Debnarayan explained.
Quick TIPS:
- Never pay money online if someone is requesting for urgent monetary help. It can be a fraud.
- Double check with the person if he is actually in distress and requires any assistance.
- Chatting with person is not good enough as authentication as chances are high that the account is hacked or spoofed.