Officials from the power distribution corporation have requested that customers be wary of these frauds and notify them if they get any false messages about past-due electricity bills.
On Friday, the Odisha Police issued a warning to the public about cybercriminals who send phoney SMS and WhatsApp messages requesting payment of energy bills or risk having their connection cut off.
The scammers are sending SMS and WhatsApp messages with subject lines like, “Dear Consumer, Your electricity will be turned off. Call immediately at 9:30 p.m. tonight since your bill from last month wasn’t updated.
Such fraudulent messages frequently contain grammatical errors in their sentences. Full stops and capital letters are used incorrectly. A senior police official claimed that scammers pose as call centre agents of power distribution firms when the victims phone them after receiving bogus SMS messages from the con artists. Customers are urged to download malicious mobile applications or click on bogus links.
In order to conduct fraudulent transactions, the fraudsters then gather personal information from the citizens, including bank information. Cybersecurity experts have advised electricity consumers to check the origins of SMS, avoid paying bills from questionable sources, avoid installing any apps that allow an unwary user to share their screen with others, avoid making payments to private accounts, and avoid clicking on any links in SMS or calling the mobile phone number shared by scammers.
The sender ID is always visible when telecom providers or electricity boards send an SMS. Unpaid electrical messages without sender IDs should be handled with caution, a police officer advised. On its website, Tata Power Southern Odisha Distribution Limited also posted a false message.
Officials from the power distribution firm have requested that customers be wary of these frauds and notify them if they get any fictitious messages about past-due electricity payments.
Prasanta Patnaik