SMS fraud deceiving people

KOKRAJHAR, Oct 11: The duping of people through false offer via mobile SMS is going on in Kokrajhar with the rest of the State. The offer of handsome amount or prizes through SMS can easily puzzle many people and as such a good number of people have been deceived. For instance, an employee of AIR, Kokrajhar very recently received a telephone call from a Reliance number 9864281592 and informed that the employee won a TATA Indica car in the Apple draw. The employee said that he was asked to deposit a cash amount of Rs 50,000 in favour of him at a bank at Tezpur and the car would be given to the winner from a show room at Dibrugarh after the deposition of cash. The person identified him as Raju Hazarika, the Regional Manager of the Reliance Company who desired to meet the winner personally at Tezpur and call the winner to come immediately within one day to take his prize. Accordingly, the winner rushed to Tezpur town and reached next early in the morning. The personal driver of the winner reportedly made an appeal not to deposit the amount without taking confirmation from the Reliance office as the winner did not received any SMS from the Reliance company other than telephonic call. In the long run, the winner and the driver entered in to a Reliance office at Tezpur for confirmation and briefed about the offer. The employee of the Reliance suggested them that the company did not make any such offer and it could be false offer of fraud agents. The employee asked them not to comply with such false offer and better leave the place. The winner returned Kokrajhar getting himself to be cheated. Sources also said, the person who claimed himself as Raju Hazarika before the winner identified himself as Raju Barua while telephoned by Reliance employee. Again the person contacted the winner that he was coming from Dibrugarh to Tezpur to meet him before delivery and asked why the money was not deposited. He told the winner to deposit Rs 3,000 for his hired vehicle to which he should pay. The winner then requested him to give the account number but instead of giving his bank account number he sought bank account number of the winner. The winner did not respond properly. Another instance is an employee of a media house of Kokrajhar who received an SMS– “Congrats!” Your mobile number has won Rs 5,000,00 (GBP) in the on-going 2009 Orange draw in UK. To claim, contact Dr Steve Mark, email: orangeprize @live.com. He was asked to deposit an amount of Rs 35,000 after doing some formalities to claim his credit. Luckily he also escaped from the deceiving act of fraud agents. Now this is common question that there could be many people who have already been duped with such false offer. THE SENTINEL