Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued an advisory for all Indian citizens against a fake website which is offering to open savings bank account: RBI Savings Account. The fake website also offers users to apply for a credit card online!
As per the press release issued by RBI, it has been clearly mentioned that they does not offer any commercial banking services such as saving account, current account or credit card services.
The advisory issued by RBI said, “The Reserve Bank has cautioned members of public not to fall prey to spurious offers made by the fake website. The Reserve Bank has further cautioned members of public that applying on line on that website could result in compromising one’s own crucial personal information, that may be misused to cause financial and other loss to them.”
Fake RBI Website
Original RBI Website
In the last few days, a fake website: has suddenly emerged, which is offering several fake services such as opening of new savings/current account, credit cards and online banking. The advisory has come up after several ignorant Internet users actually submitted application to this website, and found their personal information being unethically used.
RBI has clearly asked the general public not to “not to fall prey to spurious offers made by the fake website”. Discouraging sharing of any personal information with this website, the advisory “cautioned members of public that applying on line on that website could result in compromising one’s own crucial personal information, that may be misused to cause financial and other loss to them.”
We tried to find out the domain information of this fake website, which has been designed entirely like RBI’s official website, and even used the same colors and fonts to confuse the general public.
We found that the domain had been created very recently on May 22, 2014 and has been registered for one year. Here is the information provided by domain registrar,
Domain Name:RBI-INONLINE.ORG
Domain ID: D172664605-LROR
Creation Date: 2014-05-22T07:00:24Z
Updated Date: 2014-05-27T06:52:05Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2015-05-22T07:00:24Z
Sponsoring Registrar:Internet.bs Corp. (R1601-LROR)
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 814
WHOIS Server:
Referral URL:
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: inactive
Domain Status: serverTransferProhibited
Registrant ID:INTEw5n9reqmp61b
Registrant Name:Domain Administrator
Registrant Organization:Fundacion Private Whois
Registrant Street: Attn: rbi-inonline.org
Registrant City:Panama
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code:Zona 15
Registrant Country:PA
Registrant Phone:+507.65967959
Besides this, there is not much information regarding the whereabouts of the owner of this domain as they have made it Private. However, we were able to locate its hosting which is in Nigeria. As per our investigation, the domain has been hosted by a company known as VBHostNet, located in Nigeria.
This is yet again, a classic example of “Phishing” where in companies tries to extract user information by using fraudulent means. Indian Banks have been repeatedly asking its customers to remain beware of such firms and have instructed them to never click on suspicious looking emails. But it seems this time they have really played it smart by imitating the complete web presence of RBI.
General public is thereby cautioned and warned against using such fake websites.
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