DoT calls claiming to block your phone number may be a scam; here’s why you should be careful

DoT calls

Scammers keep finding new ways to trap their targets and trick them into making the payment. One of the most common scams these days is threatening them into blocking the phone number by pretending to be an official from the Department of Telecommunications.

PIB Fact Check has busted this scam and warned users about it via a post on X. According to the post, any call from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is fake as DoT does not make such calls to users.

How does this scam work
The workflow of this scam is pretty straightforward. Scammers call their target pretending to be from DoT and ask them a couple of generic questions only to tell them that there has been some illegal activity from their phone number, and if they don’t follow certain guidelines and share some information, then their phone number will be blocked.

The following guidelines can include several things like sharing personal information, making a payment to keep the number active and even paying some amount to let go of the case.

Now, this is pretty scary for most people. However, do keep in mind that this is a scam

Don’t panic, don’t react
The best thing to prevent such scams is not to panic and not to react on the call. Doing this will boost the scammers’ confidence and will let them force you into making the payment or get the information they want.

You should report this
The first thing you should do is report this to the government’s cybercrime department –http://cybercrime.gov.in.

Alternatively, you can dial 1930 from your phone and report the call.

Verify these numbers
You can also visit https://sancharsaathi.gov.in to verify such mobile numbers.