Cyber crooks create fake website of Vizag Port, dupe youth on pretext of recruitment

Visakhapatnam: In yet another incident of cheating, cyber criminals created a fake website of Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT), posted a recruitment notification and began collecting Rs1,200 as application fee from unemployed youth.

The official website of the VPT is www.vizagport.com and the fake website created by cyber criminals was www.visakhapatnamport.com. They also posted a notification inviting applications for recruitment to the posts of trainee engineers and diploma trainees.

In the fake website, the fraudsters mentioned that the educational qualification required for the trainee engineers is B.Tech (fresher) in mechanical, electrical and electronics, metallurgy, instrumentation, civil, chemical and a few other branches. The basic salary for the post was mentioned as Rs 80,000.

The education qualification for diploma trainees is polytechnic diploma.

Further, they asked the candidates to fill the applications online and pay an application fee of Rs1,200 for trainee engineer posts and Rs 1,000 for diploma trainee posts.

On Saturday, the officials of VPT noticed the fake website when they received phone calls from a few persons enquiring about the recruitment process.

Joint director of VPT, K. Rajendra Kumar, said that VPT has not issued the recruitment notification. Some people created fake website and had been collecting Rs 1,200 from the people as application fee. Some candidates even paid the application fee through UPI payment mode.

The VPT officials lodged a complaint with the police seeking investigation into the episode.

The cops of cyber crimes police station in Vizag city said they will examine the complaint and ascertain the number of victims. The police said that cyber crooks have been creating fake websites and duping the gullible people on various pretexts like helping the needy and many others.