The chairman of the Railway Recruitment Board’s Ranchi has shot a letter to cyber police alleging that some websites were using information and links of their official website to con job aspirants and expressed concerns that this might only be the tip of an iceberg.
DSP, cyber thana, Shradha Kerketta said she had received Mahendra Kumar Yadav’s complaint and initiated a probe.
Yadav said his letter was a warning for job-seekers. “Our site ( www.rrbranchi.gov.in) is hosted by the National Informatics Centre and we have not permitted anyone else to use our links/information. If you search for us on the Web, you will find at least a dozen more sites that are designed to trick people into believing they are genuine,” he said.
A few months ago, railways had published a vacancy notice for Group D jobs. Candidates were required to fill up application forms and submit the examination fee online through a link posted on the original website.
“We received as many as seven phone calls from aspirants complaining that they did not get admit cards despite filling up the form and depositing the fee. Their money had also been deducted from their bank accounts. We asked some of them to come to our office where the forms were filled up successfully. It is clear they had been trapped by fake websites,” Yadav said.
Rail sources said the candidates mentioned sites like https://railway.net.in/rrb-ranchi-group-d-status-2018/ and http://www.freejobalert.com/ that had online application links, which possibly directed them to a bank account other than that of the railways.
Kerketta said an inquiry had been set up. “The letter mentions the links of some of the fake websites that have used official information and links of the board. Railway authorities are suspecting that the information can be used to cheat job-seekers, but no such instance has been cited.” she said.
Sources at the cyber police station said the server of some of the fake websites were located outside India and the process had been started to procure their operational details.