Fact Check: Govt is not giving Rs 9,000 to all students for paying fees, the viral claim is fake

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A viral post on social media claims that government is giving Rs 9,000 to all students as many are struggling to pay school or college fees amid coronavirus pandemic. The post is shared along with a link to avail the fund. We received this viral claim for fact check on Vishvas WhatsApp chatbot (+91 95992 99372). 

Vishvas News investigation revealed the claim is fake. Government is not giving any Rs 9,000 to students as in the viral claim. According to cyber experts, clicking on any random links may lead to personal data theft and financial loss.

Claim

The viral post reads, “Due to the coronavirus pandemic, students are unable to pay school and college fees. Therefore the government is providing free money of Rs 9,000 to all the students. So that they can pay their fees easily. All students who are in schools and colleges will get the benefit of this scheme. You can fill the form to get your free amount of Rs 9000 from this link. Bithttp: //bit.ly/Register-For-Free-Scholarship.”

The post is viral with a request to share this message as much as possible for the convenience of the people to get the benefit. The archived version of the link shared in the message can be seen here.

Investigation

We searched on the Internet using keywords to find if government is paying Rs 9,000 to the students during covid times. We did not find any authentic report that confirms any such government help.

We clicked on the link provided in the post, where it requested to fill in personal information like name, mobile number and address.

Further to receive the fund, the user is asked to share with at least 10 people or 10 groups on WhatsApp. We could confirm the link is fake.

Vishvas News spoke to Alok Tiwari, Senior Technical Director, National Informatic Center (NIC), Uttar Pradesh to verify the claim. Tiwari warned people not to click on any such random links. “If the government is sharing any information, then the links would end with gov.in or nic.in. It is advisable to stay away from other unauthentic links. The viral message is not from any government agency,” he said.

Apart from this, we noticed that the link has been collecting personal information of the user, which may lead to financial loss in worst cases.

Online safety tips are available on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal of the Ministry of Home Affairs. It is clearly written in these safety tips that one should not click on suspicious links coming from unknown people on email, message or social media.