Indian expats in UAE warned against online travel scam

Abu Dhabi: The Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi has warned Indian expatriates against a travel scam in which a scammer uses a fake social media profile to deceive distressed and needy people by taking money from them for help that never comes.

“It has been brought to the notice of the Embassy that some people are cheating innocent Indian nationals by sending messages and collecting money to arrange their travel from the UAE to India through the Twitter handle ‘@embassy_help’ and email ID ‘ind_embassy.mea.gov@protonmail.com’,” the embassy said in an advisory on Tuesday.

“All Indian nationals are hereby informed that the Embassy of India, Abu Dhabi has no affiliation whatsoever with the Twitter handle ‘@embassy_help’ and email ID ‘ind_embassy.mea.gov@protonmail.com’,” the mission stated.

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The official e-mail addresses, Twitter handle, Facebook ID and telephone numbers of the embassy are published on the official website of the embassy. These should be checked and messages from fake IDs should be identified, said the notice issued by the embassy. 

Email addresses of Indian diplomatic missions abroad shall end with the domain @mea.gov.in. 

As per the media reports, currently, the embassy has been dealing with three-four cases but fears that more people may fall victim unless greater awareness is created.

The embassy is also in the process of contacting local authorities to take further action on the issue.

The fake Twitter ID @embassy_help also retweets COVID-19 updates tweeted by the Indian government and had recently started retweeting the tweets of India’s new President.

Photo: Twitter

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