Kolkata: As many in the city are planning trips once the school exams end on the first week of March and on the occasion of Dol and Holi, cops started a drive to warn people of the scams that take place in the pretext of hotel booking and how to escape them.
While Bidhannagar police held a dedicated online cyber safety session, Kolkata Police have started sharing digital comic strips detailing the manner in which fraudsters dupe travellers. "Conmen make fake websites of hotels and post them above the original ones on the internet. Victims end up paying money on the links provided by these crooks and lose money. What we need to do is book hotels only through verified apps, and make sure not to pay the money in one go. It is also advisable to run a check on the phone number and bank account mentioned to verify if they are actually registered with the hotel," said Bidhannagar ACP Sambiti Chakraborty.
Kolkata Police on their Facebook page ran a digital comic strip where a fraudster calls a woman and offers her a stay at a premium hotel as part of a lottery. The woman denies and asks the man for verification of the hotel along with his selfie. Realising the woman wasn't gullible, the conman backs off.