Recently, fraudulent actors have been spamming people in the name of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), threatening that their mobile numbers will be disconnected or misused for illegal activities.
In response to this issue, the DoT and Ministry of Communications have issued an advisory confirming that the DoT does not authorize anyone to make such calls on its behalf.
DoT also addressed another recent issue where people get WhatsApp calls from foreign-origin mobile numbers (like +92-xxxxxxxxxx) impersonating government officials and duping the people.
These spam callers try to get people’s personal information that might be illegally sold or used for fraudulent activities. So we all must be aware of such fake calls and stay vigilant.
DoT suggests reporting such fraudulent communications through the “Chakshu-Report Suspected Fraud Communications” facility on the Sanchar Saathi portal, which helps prevent the misuse of telecom resources.
The department also suggests checking for irrelevant mobile connections in the user’s name using the “Know Your Mobile Connections” facility on the same portal.
Furthermore, the usage of spam identification apps like Truecaller, which now has an AI-powered spam-blocking feature, is also recommended to avoid such fraudulent calls proactively.