The regional passport office in Visakhapatnam reported that some unauthorised persons were approaching college and universities for online passport application and were collecting exorbitant fees from the applicants. It was brought to light that these unauthorised group of people were charging INR 1000 more than the notified fees as they posed as passport online service providers.
NLP Choudary [passport office] told that a student applicant was cheated of INR 2500 by the fraudsters for filing the online passport application. On interrogation, it was found out that this fake team visited MVGR College of Engineering [Vizianagaram] and approached the college authorities to seek permission to set up a camp for filing online passport applications for students.
After being permitted by the college authorities, the fraudster put up a camp on the college grounds for a week and took passport applications from students. They charged INR 2500 per application for more than 200 student applications.
Choudary said,” Similar instances occurred in mid-2015 at Visakha Institute of Technology, Baba Institute and Vignan University and this is the fourth college in the list. Our office had already issued a press release in this regard during August 2015 cautioning all the institutions and students not to fall prey to such unscrupulous persons. All colleges are once again advised to be careful and cautious before allowing any such persons and in case of any suspicion may contact the office authorities in the following telephone no. 0891-2745747 or email at rpo.vizag@mea.gov.in”.
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