With online fraud cases where miscreants pose as electricity officers continuing despite repeated warnings, the Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) on Wednesday filed a complaint with the Cyber Economic and Narcotics Crime Police Station (CEN).
Many incidents of these fraudsters sending bill payment related text messages (SMS) to Bescom customers and conning them of money have been reported in the last few weeks.
The target of these fraud cases has mostly been IT employees who were asked to pay the electricity bill immediately to avoid disconnection of electricity through a fake link. Bescom has issued several media ads, and run campaigns on social media asking the customers to not pay any heed to such messages and not to share OTPs or any other personal details or send money.
“Many of our customers have paid electricity bill through the link sent by online fraudsters and lost their money. Bescom has neither called our customers nor sent any messages to them for payment of electricity bill. Despite repeated awareness campaigns from Bescom through the social media platform and newspapers in the form of press statements and advertisements, a few customers have been conned by the cyber fraudsters,” Bescom General Manager (Customer Relations) S.R. Nagaraj stated in the complaint.
After several customers recently dialled 1912, Bescom’s helpline number, to complain about receiving the SMS which asked them to pay bills, the officials filed a complaint. The CEN police have begun their investigation and traced some calls and messages received by customers to West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The officers said that they have shared the same information with the police forces of the respective States.
In a press release, Bescom urged its customers to pay electricity bills only at Bescom billing counters or on the Bescom Mitra App or Bescom online portal.
