Hyderabad: The year-end festive season is the time for many mobile recharge offers. A website (deal.dealnowgetoffr.work) claiming to offer Jio recharge for a year at just Rs 399 has gone viral.
A Facebook post shared a link to the website explaining how people can get 2GB/day of data, unlimited calls and 100 SMS/day by just paying Rs 399 instead of the usual Rs 2,999 plan. The website also featured recharge options for other mobile carriers such as Airtel, Vi and BSNL. (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The website offering a special Jio recharge for a year at a minimal cost is fake.
Firstly, we searched the official Jio website but did not find any offer that matched the Rs 399 offer. There were many other discrepancies on the website that hinted at the website’s inauthenticity. Site elements such as buttons for ‘Recharge,’ ‘Pay Bills,’ and ‘Get Jio SIM’ were not actionable. Additionally, the photos relating to Jio features were blurred and poorly rendered.
The payment gateway also did not inspire trust in the website.
We selected a service provider on the website, entered a mobile number, clicked recharge and were directed to an offer page. After choosing an offer, we were directed to the payments page.
However, we managed to go through this process even after we entered a fake mobile number.
Also, unlike the official Jio website, the payments page on this website only featured options for Google Pay, Paytm, PhonePe and WhatsApp Pay. It doesn’t allow payments through debit or credit cards or net banking. However, even the UPI payment options did not work. Failure to process payment confirmed that the sole purpose of the website was data harvesting.
Using DomainTools, we found that the domain (https://deal.dealnowgetoffr.work/) has been reported for phishing, malware and spam. As a rule, one should always be careful about the details being provided to any website. Websites like these either harvest your data to sell to others or use your details to commit financial fraud.
Hence, we conclude that the claim is false and the website circulating on Facebook claiming to provide a ‘Jio Dhamaka Offer’ is a phishing website.