Brace yourselves 'Jamtara' scamsters! National helpline launched to trace online frauds, check details

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), major banks, Payment Banks, digital wallets and online merchants are offering their active support to the national helping number to make digital transactions safer in India.

New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has rolled a national helpline 155260, along with a reporting platform to create a safer digital payments ecosystem in the country. 

The aim is to prevent Indians from losing their life savings to rising financial frauds in India. Using the platform, one can report cheating incidents or cyber frauds so that law enforcement agencies can take swift action. 

“The Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System has been developed in house by I4C to integrate Law Enforcement Agencies and Banks and Financial Intermediaries,” the Home Ministry had said in a statement. 

The ministry had launched the pilot of the platform on April 1, 2021. Both the helpline number and the fraud reporting platform have come into action by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the MHA. Also Read: All-new BMW S 1000 R hits Indian roads – Check price, features and other details in pics

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), major banks, Payment Banks, digital wallets and online merchants are offering their active support to make digital transactions safer in India.

Banks such as SBI, PNB, BOB, BOI, Union Bank, HDFC, IndusInd, among others and digital merchants like PayTM, PhonePe, Mobikwik, Flipkart and Amazon are offering their support to the platform. 

Currently, the helpline is rolled out in seven states and union territories - Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. MHA is soon going to roll out the platform in other states as well. The ministry noted that the platform has so far saved Rs 1.85 crore of defrauded money. Also Read: IRCTC Latest Update: Indian Railways to operate 660 more trains in June

Here’s how the digital fraud helpline works 

1. Using the helpline, law enforcement agencies prevent online cheating cases by chasing the money trail before the fraudsters convert it into hard cash. 

2. Cyber fraud victims can simply call on 155260 to raise a complaint. 

3. The telephone operator notes down information such as fraud transaction details along with a few basic personal information before generating a ticket on the Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System.

4. You’ll get an SMS with an acknowledgement number of the complaint within 24 hours of registering it. 

5. Once a ticket is raised, banks, wallets, and online merchants, among other involved parties, are alerted to take action. 

6. With the details in place, the concerned bank will now start going through the details shared by the victim. 

7. The bank will put defrauded money on hold if it hasn’t taken out of the bank. 

8. In case, the fraudsters have transferred the money to another bank, then your bank will escalate a ticket to the bank handling the defrauded money. 

9. Banks will repeat the process so that you can get your money back.