The Ministy of Home Affairs has operationalised 155260, a national Helpline and Reporting Platform that will help preventing financial loss due to cyber fraud.
According to the Ministry press release, this helpline will put in place mechanisms where people can report such cases, if they are found to be defrauded.
"The facility empowers both the banks and the police, by leveraging new-age technologies for sharing online fraud-related information and taking action in almost real time," it said, adding that loss of defrauded money in online cheating cases can be stopped by chasing the money trail and stopping its further flow before it is taken out of the digital ecosystem by the fraudster.
The hotline is manned and operated by the concerned State Police, it said.
The Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System has been developed in house by I4C to integrate Law Enforcement Agencies and Banks and Financial Intermediaries.
It is currently under use in by seven States and Union Territories - Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
How does it work?
A victim can simply dial the hotline (155260). After this, a police operator will note down the fraud transaction details and basic personal information of the caller.
They will then submit these details in the form of a Ticket on the Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System.
This ticket will then be escalated to the concerned Banks, Wallets, Merchants and so on, depending on whether they are the victim’s bank or the bank/wallet in which the defrauded money has gone.
An acknowledgement will also be sent to the victim in the form of an SMS with an acknowledgement number of the complaint. It will also include directions to submit complete details of the fraud on the National Cybercrime Reporting 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 in its internal systems.
If the defrauded money is still available, the bank puts it on hold, meaning that the fraudster cannot withdraw this money. 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.
The process is repeated until the money is saved from reaching into the hands of the fraudsters
This initiative was first soft-launched in April 1, 2021. Following this soft launch, in a span of two months, Helpline155260 was able to save more than Rs.1.85 crore of defrauded money from reaching the hands of fraudsters, with Delhi and Rajasthan saving Rs 58 lakh and Rs 53 lakh respectively, as per the Ministry.
The Helpline155260 and its Reporting Platform has been made operational by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
It is supported by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as well as all major banks, Payment Banks, Wallets and Online Merchants.
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