Beware of a lottery scam that uses the name of Raghuram Rajan!

Taking bank lottery scam to a new level, scamsters are using the name and picture of RBI chief Raghuram Rajan to lure gullible people into making a cash deposit of Rs 15,500 to get a winning amount of Rs 5.50 crore (Rs 55 million).

The 'lottery' amount that they promise to credit into the account of those giving an 'approval fee' is claimed to be part of funds given to RBI by the British Government.

In the scam email, purportedly sent by Rajan and ending with his "hearty congratulations", the targetted beneficiary is also informed that his or her name was decided pursuant to a meeting he had with the United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon in September.

Asking for this mail to be kept confidential and away from "general public for security reason", the scamsters also provide name and details of a money transfer manager, with a purported employee ID card of an RBI Chief General Manager.

As per RBI, such fictitious offers typically try to defraud gullible people by using its name and are also used as a phishing attempt to get personal and banking details of the targetted persons.

About another fraud perpetrated in its name, RBI recently said in a public alert that fraudsters were promising to issue credit cards in the name of central bank.

Explaining the modus operandi, RBI said that the gullible person is sent a credit card which allows money withdrawal up to a certain limit, albeit a small sum, from a bank account.

Having gained the confidence, the fraudster gets the victim to deposit a huge sum in the same account. Once the money is deposited, the card stops working and that would also be the last time the cardholder would hear from the fraudster.

Warning against such efforts, RBI said it does not carry out any business with an individual, whether through bank accounts, credit or debit cards, online banking or transfer of funds from abroad.