Ways To Avoid Covid Vaccination Scam

As Covid-wary Indians rush to get a jab, many are falling prey to fake vaccine drives. Dr. Sanjay Mehendale told Brut how to avoid getting conned.

Transcript

00:00There is a strong possibility of some big fraud, vaccination fraud.

00:30People who are not say mobile savvy or computer savvy, what do they do?

00:41I would strongly advise using such portals and the two which are most commonly advocated

00:50by the government machinery, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare are Aruvya Setu

00:54and COWIN.

00:55So, in such situations, it is quite possible that even in various government centres, municipal

01:05centres as well as government centres, there are facilities where people can go and get

01:11themselves registered using these same portals.

01:14If we are getting some kind of a message from somebody where we probably are not so sure

01:20about the source, one should immediately think that this can be fraudulent.

01:25Normally the registration process requires either the Aadhaar card or PAN card.

01:29But if these agencies are asking for something else, some other documentation, some other

01:34evidence, monetary evidence, particularly monetary documents, more specifically, it

01:40should raise further flags in your own mind.

01:43If somebody is coming to you, it is definitely advisable that you check the credentials appropriately.

01:50A middleman might come to you, but primarily it is some kind of a hospital or agency or

01:56an institute which is supposed to carry out this vaccination.

02:00There has to be a documentation which these people should carry that they are authorized

02:04to carry out this vaccination at this and this location and that has been approved with

02:09this kind of a vaccine.

02:11It's also good to check their I-cards.

02:14One should essentially have a look at what a certificate typically looks at.

02:18It starts with the name of the ministry on top, written clearly.

02:23And then there is your name, the recipient's name, who is going to receive the vaccination

02:27followed by his age and gender.

02:31And also there is a mention of what document actually was verified.

02:35Also they have your own reference ID because when you have registered into your portal,

02:40into this portal for vaccination request, there will be a unique number created for

02:45you which will also be printed on the vaccine certificate.

02:48On the top, there is a barcode.

02:50So this is an automatically generated barcode which can only be scanned and which will provide

02:56all this information that I'm just talking about.

02:59Smaller things also help.

03:01The way they are preparing their setup for vaccination campaign in your society.

03:06Those who are trained and those who have done that particular exercise a large number of

03:11times, you can easily make out.