Fraudsters, falsely representing themselves as officers of Bangladesh Employees Welfare Board officers are looting money from service holders, teachers and physicians working in port city Khulna.
The information of those people, who have been applied for treatment-facility and scholarship, went into the possessions of that syndicate.
The victims said, the fraudsters group demands information regarding their credit cards, bkash number etc. by enticing them to give donations in the name of Employee Welfare Board. When they provide the info, the fraud syndicate grabbed their money.
Kamrunnahar Shirin, assistant teacher of Gobarchaka National Government Primary School said, someone wanted her credit card number in the name of giving donation by calling him on cellphone on September 5 and 6. Mentioning himself as ‘Employee Welfare Board Officer,’ the fraud told her that she was also entitled to get 22,000 Tk as medical expense of 2018 and asked for her credit card number to send the amount to the bank account. After she gave him the number, an OTP (one time password) came to her mobile. When she let him know the number, some money has been deducted from her account.
In the same way, some government employees and physicians got a victim of this fraudulence act.
However, Bangladesh Employee Welfare Board provides the service holders donation for general and complex-disease treatment, scholarship, joint-insurance and funeral purposes. The victims said, the information they provide to the board are in the hands of the fraud syndicate. The know the necessary contact and transaction details and using these info they grabbed money illegally.
Director of Bangladesh Employee Welfare Board, Md Firoz Shah said, they get these kinds of complaints in bulk. They filed more than 50 cases and general diaries at police stations and some members of the syndicate have been arrested. In addition, they issue alert notifications from the board, too.
The board officers told The Bangladesh Pratidin, details information of allottee was uploaded on the website few years ago. The fraud group might extract information from there. However, personal information has been removed from the site already.
Another director of the board AKM Fazluzzoha said, the allotted money is sent to the bank account of the customers. There’s no need of PIN numbers. So, we urge everyone to be alert and not provide secret information to third party in this regard.
@The article appeared on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on September 11, 2022 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque
