Cyber fraudsters sending fake e-challan messages to dupe residents

Cyber fraudsters are sending fake messages of e-challans linked to forged sites as bait to dupe the residents. As soon as any vehicle owner clicks on the link to pay the challan and enters the bank account details or debit/credit card information, the fraudsters hack his/ her phone to take it in their control for some time to withdraw money from his/her account.

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As per sources, several residents have received such dubious messages on their cell phones with a link of e-challans.

“Cyber fraudsters are now using the growing trend of e-challan payment as a weapon to make people their victims. They prepare an exact fake message of e-challan and also send a fake link at the bottom of the message asking the vehicle owner to make the payment, said Rohtak SP Narendra Bijarnia.

He appealed to the people that “Do not hurry to make the payment on receiving an e-challan message on their cell phones. Check the message properly or else your bank account may get emptied due in a hurry.”

The SP further informed that the original message of e-challan contains vehicle's engine, chassis number and other information, whereas the fake messages for e-challan donot mention such details. “Also, the message of e-challan never comes from any cell phone number. The link of the website by which you are paying the challan should start with https and end with gov.in. On receiving the same e-challan message, you can also check it by visiting the mparivahan website,” he asked people.

He further informed that the genuine challan link always contains the address of the government site- https://echallan.parivahan.gov.in/ but the fraudsters cleverly make a slight change in the link in the exact same government message, which can be identified with a little caution. The message coming from the fraudster contains the link of https://echallan.parivahan.in/. The general public should keep in mind that the real link will definitely contain gov.in, he added.

Bijarnia said in case of cheating, the victim should immediately call the National Cyber​​Complaint Portal number 1930 and register an online complaint on www.cybercrime.gov.in. As soon as possible, register a complaint on 1930, dial 112 or on the complaint portal and apart from this, go to the nearest police station and take help from Cyber ​​Help Desk or Cyber​​Police Station Rohtak, he added.