The Centre on Wednesday warned citizens against falling prey to fraudulent calls impersonating officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). There have been numerous instances where scammers, claiming to be officials of the telecom regulator, threatened people that their numbers would soon be blocked unless they provided certain personal information.
“TRAI has been informed that many robocalls are being made to citizens claiming to be from TRAI,” the regulator said. TRAI further clarified that it does not initiate communications with customers regarding disconnection of mobile numbers through messages or otherwise.
“TRAI has also not authorised any third party agency to contact customers for such purposes. Therefore, any form of communication (call, message or notice) claiming to be from TRAI and threatening to disconnect the mobile number should be considered a possible fraud attempt and should not be entertained,” it warned.
The government has also encouraged citizens to report suspected fraudulent communications through the Chakshu feature on the Sanchar Saathi platform of the Department of Telecommunications. “In case of confirmed cases of cybercrime, victims should report the incident to the designated cybercrime helpline number ‘1930’ or through the official website,” TRAI said.
Moreover, disconnection of any mobile number for billing, KYC or misuse reasons, if any, is done by the respective telecom service provider (TSP). Citizens are advised to be vigilant and not panic over falling into the hands of suspected fraudsters. TRAI said they should verify such calls by contacting authorised call centres or customer care centres of the respective TSP.
Meanwhile, the regulatory body has ordered access service providers to take concrete steps to curb misuse of messaging services, with effect from September 1. The telecom authority has ordered them to migrate telemarketing calls from the 140 series onwards to the online distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform, by September 30, for better monitoring and control.
Disclaimer:
The information contained in this post is for general information purposes only. We make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the post for any purpose.
We respect the intellectual property rights of content creators. If you are the owner of any material featured on our website and have concerns about its use, please contact us. We are committed to addressing any copyright issues promptly and will remove any material within 2 days of receiving a request from the rightful owner.