PM Modi-Led Govt Offering ₹5,000 Cash Rewards To Citizens? No, Viral Link Is A Scam

Claim

The Narendra Modi-led Central government is offering ₹5,000 cash rewards to citizens, purportedly in association with UPI apps, upon clicking an external link.

 The archived version of the post can be seen here.

Fact

Newschecker clicked on the external link, which directed us to a website featuring the images of PM Narendra Modi, BJP president JP Nadda, the party’s symbol, the national emblem, and the logo of ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’. “Free gift of ₹5000 for everyone from PM Modi…To celebrate Modi’s birthday, everyone will receive free gifts today only. Truth always triumphs. Click below to send money to your account. Send money to your account,” read the Telugu text, along with another external link to “send the money” and logos of other UPI payment apps.

Newschecker then ran a keyword search for “PM Modi government ₹5,000 giveaways Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana”, which did not lead us to any credible news reports nor official announcements of such a scheme. Moreover, PM Modi’s birthday is on September 17, which is still over three months away. Also, the URL of the website, https://wh1449479.ispot.cc/telugu/, does not read like an official government portal, further raising our doubts. The official website of the  Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) also does not have any announcement on such a giveaway.

We next ran the viral link past Scam Detector, a major online fraud prevention tool, which assigned it a low trust score of 46.4/100, along with the tags, “Doubtful. Medium-Risk. Alert”.

“The Scam Detector website validator gives ispot.cc a low-to-medium trust score on the platform: 46.4. It signals that the business could be defined by the following tags: Doubtful. Medium-Risk. Alert.. We are confident about our score as we also partner with other high-tech, fraud-prevention companies that found the same issues. So, why this low score? We came up with the 46.4 score based on 53 aggregated factors relevant to ispot.cc’s industry. The algorithm detected potential high-risk activity related to phishing, spamming, and other factors noted in the Doubtful. Medium-Risk. Alert. tags above. Long story short, we caution you about using this website,” read the website’s review.

What Are UPI Scams?

Newschecker has already debunked a similar viral post, falsely claiming that RCB was offering ₹5,000 giveaways to fans upon clicking an external link or scratching a virtual card, after they won their maiden IPL title on June 3, 2025. We learnt that fake giveaways, often disguised as contests or prize promotions, are one of the many traps scammers use to steal your personal data, money, or even gain access to your accounts.

However, there is a slight difference in the modus operandi being used by fraudsters this time, primarily exploiting the UPI system to steal money or sensitive information from users. Methods like phishing, fake UPI links, request money scams, impersonation and social engineering are used by fraudsters to trick individuals into revealing their UPI PIN, OTP, or bank details, leading to unauthorised transactions, according to these write-ups by IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finserv and payments aggregator Razorpay.

Some of the key ways to protect yourself from UPI frauds are to avoid unknown calls, messages and fake apps; enable security features; track bank messages; and exercising caution with payment requests — Remember, receiving money does not require a PIN. In case of falling victim to an UPI fraud, immediately inform your UPI provider and the bank about the fraudulent transaction, along with filing a complaint on the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) or cybercrime portal.

Also Read: Video Claiming To Show A Hindu Priest Riding A Crocodile Is AI-Generated

Source
Website analysis
Scam Detector tool