EPFO India Not Giving Rs 80,000 to Those Who Worked From 1990-2018
The website link being circulated with the message is fake as well.
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CLAIM
A message stating that the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation of India is giving Rs 80,000 to workers who worked between 1990-2018 has been doing the rounds on social media.
The same message went viral in 2018 as well. People were encouraged to check the link provided in the messages to see if they were eligible to “withdraw” the amount.
The link to the website mentioned in the message is: https://seventhree.club/epf
TRUE OR FALSE?
The message being circulated is fake. In fact, the original website of EPFO has been flashing the message, “Kindly beware of the fake websites that are sharing wrong information about EPFO”.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On following the link that accompanied the message, The Quint was led to a fake EPFO website as can be seen below.
The website had no working tabs or links -- the entire page was a still image. Moreover, it had one dialog box where one could check one’s eligibility for receiving the “benefits”.
The Quint answered the questions to see what would happen. Three questions were asked:
- Are you over 18 years old?
- Did you worked in one of the periods between 1990 and 2018?
- Are you working currently somewhere?
All were yes/no questions. After answering the questions with different permutations and combinations, we were led to the same dialog box. A message stating, “Congratulations, you’re in the list!” popped up, which was followed by the dialog box shown below.
The Quint continued following up and after clicking the share button thrice, we were led to a bogus website. This fake website had absolutely nothing to do with the EPFO.
Thus, the message is completely false.
Similar Message Circulated About KWSP, Malaysian EPF
We also came across a similar message that had gone viral in 2018. But this time, the message focused on the Malaysian Employees’ Provident Fund known as KWSP.
This fake message was also debunked then.
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