'Congratulation! Your prize iPhone 15. Click on…': A new scam alert; how to identify this fraud

Recently India Post warned about a scam being circulated against their name. The scam post mentioned that India Post is giving away iPhone 15 and users need to share this post with either 5 groups or 20 friends. In response to this scam post which was circulated on social media, India Post said that it is untrue and is intended to scam people. "India Post is not giving any kind of gift through any unofficial portal or link. For any information related to India Post please follow the official website ????
https://indiapost.gov.in," said India Post on X (formerly Twitter).

How to check if a viral message is a scam or not

First, you need to check if an offer is too good to be true. It must be noted that India Post, which is the world's largest postal network does not just give away expensive consumer electronics like the iPhone 15 which was launched a few days back starting at Rs 79,900.


The second checkpoint to know whether a post is a scam or not is to check the URL of the website. India Post mentioned that their website is https://indiapost.gov.in so if the website URL looks like http://IndiaPost.gov.in then you should know that it's a fake website. This is because the 'I' is in capital letters while on the official website, it is 'i'. Another checkpoint to know if a website is a scam or not is to check for its domain (.com, .org, .in, etc.). Since India Post falls under the Ministry of Communications its website's domain will be of the government- .gov.in.


Earlier this week on September 13, 2023, during the G20 event in Delhi, India Post came out with another warning tweet. They said,
"SCAM Alert!! Don't believe in lies! Be ALERT! Be WISE! India Post is not offering G20 summit gifts to anyone. Don't click and respond to fake links. Share the Scam Alert to friends and family."

In that scam post, the same type of fraudulent promises was being circulated that India Post was giving away gifts. That time it
were gifts and now this time it's iPhone 15, but the nature of the scam is the same-gift giveaway.

As a user, one should be mindful of the fact that India Post or any government portals will never ask for debit cards or sensitive
identification details. Hence one should be careful while transacting online and if possible use card controls to switch the respective debit and credit card off so that no person other than the one intended can use it for transacting.