The Meghalaya Police has issued an advisory cautioning the citizens not to fall prey to “gift card scams”.
“It is requested that the general public should not fall victim to any of the gift card scams offered by the scammers, as the scammers will siphon off the amount spent on purchasing the gift card,” assistant inspector general of police (A) GK Iangrai said in the statement.
The police advisory was issued on April 20 in the wake of several WhatsApp numbers containing the display picture of a government official and their name having been sent through the social media platform, to various citizens asking for assistance in the form of Amazon Pay e-gift cards.
These impersonators under the pretext of attending an emergency meeting, have been sending gift card links from Amazon Pay to WhatsApp users, requesting the user to purchase the e-gift card, the Meghalaya Police officer said.
The fraudsters will send gift card links pre-loaded with an amount which may be up to Rs 10,000 and thereafter, will convince their target to purchase the gift card, and to share the claim code via WhatsApp or email, he said.
