Shimla: With a number of people falling prey to mobile phone or internet lottery schemes, false investment proposals, overseas scholarship or job offers that entice with providing remittances in US dollars, Reserve Bank of India officers here today warned no such schemes are permitted under the Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999.
“It is observed that there has been a spate of fictitious offers of cheap funds from fraudsters through letters, e-mails, mobile phones and through SMS are being sent to targeted people, with some such communications using fake RBI letter heads, purportedly signed by its top executives are also being sent,†said a RBI spokesman.
Money was being sought from gullible people under different heads, such as processing-transaction fee, tax clearance charges or conversion fees and the victims are persuaded to the amounts with banks in the country. Once the money is deposited in such accounts, it is immediately withdrawn, duping the hapless individual who has fallen prey to the fraud, he said.
RBI has asked the public to be vigilant while opening or allowing transactions in such accounts in response fictitious offers or fictitious representations. Such offers need to be brought to the notice of the police at the earliest so that the culprits are caught, said the spokesman.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
