In a worrisome development, scammers are targeting pensioners on WhatsApp in India as the deadline for government pensioners to submit the Jeevan Pramaan certificate comes closer. The certificate has to be submitted to the authorised pension disbursing agencies like banks every year in November.

In a bid to swindle them out of money by stealing their personal information, the scammers request the pensioners to share their personal information via the popular messaging platform.

After the surfacing of such incidents, the government has warned that official updates will not be sent through WhatsApp. The authorities also asked the pensioners to report suspicious messages and directly contact their bank or pension office, for any query.

Jeevan Pramaan certificate

Jeevan Pramaan certificate is a Life Certificate programme for people with pensions. For pensioners to continue receiving their payments, they must have the Jeevan Pramaan certificate. Using this fact, scammers, pretending to be government officials, are sending messages to pensioners threatening that their pension will discontinue unless they update their Jeevan Pramaan certificate or provide personal information via a given link.

A spokesperson for the Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO) said: "These messages are a deliberate attempt to steal personal information and potentially financial resources from unsuspecting pensioners."

Precautionary measures

The government stressed that WhatsApp or any other social media platform will never be used for official correspondence related to Jeevan Pramaan certificates. Pensioners are requested to take the following actions upon receiving such a message: Avoid clicking on suspicious links or downloading attachments from it.

Inform police

Report any suspicious messages that you receive right away to the police. You may approach your local police station or forward the message to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) as well.