Matrimonial site fraud cases on a rise, Minister Yashomati Thakur asks citizen to be careful

While the cybercrime is on rise, the state Women and Child Development Minister Adv. Yashomati Thakur on Wednesday, December 16, appealed to be careful while using matrimonial sites. The number of online scams through such websites is also high. She also urged the citizens to report to the police immediately about such frauds.

On the matrimonial sites, often parents  provide all their personal information, while creating a profile for their respective sons or daughter. However, such websites intend to deceive these people online financially or sell the data on the Darknet, which is the black market of the Internet.

"When registering on matrimonial sites, the marriage proposals that come through them should be examined very carefully; Don't fall prey to any lure of the person concerned. Don't tell any person about private and personal life. Fraudsters often pretend to have a good job abroad, pretend to have money stuck, or send gift items to customs officials at the airport, but in most cases the money is boiled down by blackmailing the girls by morphing their photos. Such profiles should be brought to the notice of the police," said Dr. Rashmi Karandikar, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mumbai Cyber Department.

In order to curb such crimes, Mumbai's cyber police have started creating awareness on cybercrime and frauds taking place on the matrimonial sites. In this regards, the Maharashtra minister Yashomati Thakur inaugurated an online workshop along with Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Milind Bharamba, Deputy Commissioner of Cyber Crime Branch Dr. Rashmi Karandikar. Besides, cyber experts provided guidance on how to register on these websites, and representatives of various matrimonial websites had also participated in the discussion.

“With an increase in the use of internet, the rate of cybercrime is also growing rapidly through various social media platforms accounts like Facebook, Instagram, and many more. This is probably the beginning of cybercrimes against women. Therefore, while learning new technology, women need to be more aware of what information should be revealed. They need to protect themselves from falling into the trap of cyber criminals,” said Thakur.

In the seminar the experts spoke about these most common means of fraud practiced by criminals:

• Usually, profiles with divorced status looking for a partner or who could not get married for some reason, fake their identity and start the conversations, soon start pretending that about financial difficulties and then disappears.
• Many a times, it happens that the opposite person starts the conversation, befriending you. Later, they ask you to share their personal information and photos. Once, they receive all the information, they gradually start blackmailing, saying if you fail to pay a certain amount they would reveal it on social media.
• Lately, it has been observed that Indian’s have fascination with Indians living abroad, especially in the minds of parents of girls, so cyber hackers mainly rely on such profiles. In the name of sending you some expensive gift items from abroad they ask to pay a certain amount online in a certain account for custom clearance. Once, the money is deposited in their account, the profile on social media account suddenly disappears and the phone number is also not reachable.