Centre Launches National Helpine Number For Reporting Cyberfraud

The Union Home Ministry has operationalised 155260, a national helpline and reporting platform that will help prevent financial loss due to cyber fraud.

The ministry press release said that the helpline will put in place mechanisms where people can report such cases, if they are found to be defrauded. Currently, the number is operational in Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

The helpline was soft-launched on April 1 this year. Since then, it has been able to save more than ₹1.85 crore of defrauded money from reaching the hands of fraudsters. Delhi and Rajasthan have saved ₹58 lakh and ₹53 lakh, respectively, the statement said as reported by LiveMint.

How Does It Work?

• A victim has to call on the helpline number which is manned by the state police concerned.
• The operator notes down the fraud transaction details and basic personal information of the caller and submits them in the form of a ticket on the Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System.
• The ticket then gets escalated to the concerned banks, wallets, merchants.
• An SMS is sent to the victim with the acknowledgement number of the complaint with a direction to submit complete details of the fraud on the portal https://cybercrime.gov.in/ within 24 hours, using the acknowledgement number.
• The concerned bank, which can now see the ticket on its dashboard on the reporting portal, can check the details on its internal systems.
• If the defrauded money is still available, the bank puts it on hold. The fraudster cannot withdraw this money when this happens. However, in case the defrauded money has moved out to another bank, the same ticket gets escalated to the next bank to which the money has moved out.
• This process is repeated until the money is saved from reaching the hands of the fraudsters.

Rise In Cybercrime Cases

Cyberfraud has been on the rise in the country. According to a Norton survey, 45 per cent of adult Indian internet users faced an identity threat in 2020.-up almost 40 percent since 2019

Furthermore, 59 percent of all adult Indian internet users, seemingly faced cybercrime in one way or the other through 2020. While it is not entirely clear as to the stipulated financial cost incurred as a result of cyberattacks, Norton states that Indians spent a total of 1.3 billion hours collectively attempting to resolve cybercrime crises.

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