PF Update: EPFO Shares Tips to Prevent Online Frauds; All you Need to Know

Alerting its members against online frauds and scams, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) issued an advisory via its social media pages. EPFO asked the members to refrain from sharing any information related to their PF account over calls or social media interaction even when the other person claims to be representative of the organization. EPFO clarified that it never asks for personal details like Aadhaar, PAN, UAN, Bank Account, OTP over call, WhatsApp or social media.

Adding that it never asks PF account holders to deposit money to avail of its services, the EPFO advised to not respond to calls asking for personal details.

https://twitter.com/socialepfo/status/1451801813645156356?s=20

For further details and grievance redressal, the account holders can approach EPFO at https://epfigms.gov.in or connect over toll-free number 1800-118-005. EPFO members have the option to seek information on related services on the UMANG app, a government routed platform

Sharing personal detail can enable hackers to log in to your EPF account and compromise its security. Several cases of fraud have recently been reported where hackers logged in to the PF account of the fraud victim and withdrew the balance without their knowledge. People who recently changed their job and are yet to transfer their EPF account to the new organization are at greater risks of such cyber-attacks. The number of such phishing attacks of EPFO and bank frauds had witnessed a rise during the lockdown last year. The law enforcement agencies burst several rackets involved in such scams.

If you have an EPFO account and received any such calls, you may report it to EPFO or other law enforcement agencies.

The Employee Provident Fund scheme offered by the EPFO is one of the world’s largest social security schemes. The EPFO scheme applies to every organization with 20 or more employees. Under this scheme, the employee whose pay is more than Rs 15,000 per monthhas to pay a certain contribution of his salary (12 per cent) toward the EPF account and an equal contribution is paid by the employer. The employee gets an accumulated sum of money from his EPFO account at the time of his retirement along with the applicable interest. There are also provisions to withdraw this money before maturity.

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