The Centre on Wednesday cautioned citizens not to fall prey to fraudulent calls impersonating officials from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). There have been numerous instances where scammers, claiming to be from the telecom regulatory body, threaten people that their numbers will be blocked soon unless they give certain personal information.
“It has been brought to the notice of TRAI that a lot of pre-recorded calls are being made to citizens claiming to be from the TRAI,” the regulatory body said. The TRAI further clarified that it does not initiate communication with customers regarding mobile number disconnection 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 mobile number disconnection should be considered a potential fraudulent attempt and must not be entertained,” it advised.
The government also encouraged citizens to report suspected fraudulent communications through the Chakshu facility on the Department of Telecommunications’ Sanchar Saathi platform. “For confirmed instances of cybercrime, victims should report the incident at the designated cyber crime helpline number ‘1930’ or through the official website,” said TRAI.
Moreover, the disconnection of any mobile number due to billing, KYC or misuse if any, is done by the respective telecom service provider (TSP). Citizens are advised to be vigilant and not panic to fall prey to suspected fraudsters. TRAI said they should cross-verify such calls by contacting the authorised call centres or customer service centres of the respective TSP.
Meanwhile, the regulatory body has directed access service providers to take concrete measures to curb misuse of messaging services, effective from September 1. The telecom authority mandated them to migrate telemarketing calls starting with 140 series to the online distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform, latest by September 30, for better monitoring and control.
