Consumer Rights · Scam Alert · September 28, 2026
Key Facts
- Dainik Bhaskar English reports that scammers are offering students fake international scholarships, then charging “registration, processing fees, and document verification.”
- India’s Ministry of Home Affairs and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) have warned about the scam.
- How it reaches victims: fake scholarship ads, emails, messages and websites.
- Red flags: fees to “secure” a scholarship; requests for passport and bank details; pressure to pay quickly.
“Every year, thousands of students apply for international scholarships. These provide them with financial assistance for tuition fees, accommodation, and other study-related expenses. But cybercriminals have now set their sights on this as well. Scammers are targeting students. Through fake websites, emails, and social media posts, they are offering students fraudulent scholarships. By luring students with the promise of scholarships, they are extorting money in the name of registration, processing fees, and document verification. Not only that, scammers are using students’ passports, bank details, and other documents to carry out various types of fraud.”[1]
What the Scam Looks Like
- Fees to get a scholarship. The source says most scholarships charge no processing or verification fee; scammers ask for registration, processing and verification fees, a “refundable security deposit” or an “administration charge.”
- Your passport and bank details. Scammers use students’ passports, bank details and documents for other fraud.
- Unofficial sender, pressure to pay fast. An unclear organisation, an email ID that isn’t official, a suspicious link, or a scholarship you can’t find anywhere else are all warning signs, according to cyber-security adviser Rahul Mishra.
Recreation built from details reported by Dainik Bhaskar English. It shows the format and claims the source describes; the exact wording is illustrative, not a copy of a real message. Links and numbers are non-working placeholders. The 48-hour deadline stands in for the pressure to pay quickly that the source warns about.
How to Protect Yourself
- Check scholarship details only on the official website of the university, government department or organisation offering it.
- Be wary of any request to pay money repeatedly to “secure” a scholarship. Where a real application fee exists, it is stated on the official website.
- Do not share bank details, one-time passwords (OTPs), passwords or original documents without verifying who is asking, even with an agent. Be cautious of any agent who guarantees a scholarship or asks for money upfront.
If You Already Paid or Shared Documents
- Check your bank and payment-app transactions, tell your bank immediately, and have the affected account or card blocked.
- Change your passwords and keep every screenshot, email, link and payment record.
- Report it to the university or organisation named in the offer. In India, call the cyber helpline 1930 or file on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.
How to Verify This Yourself
Read the original alert directly at Dainik Bhaskar English — that page is the primary source for everything above.
References
- Dainik Bhaskar English. Scam in the name of Scholarship: Students and parents, beware! Learn to distinguish between genuine offers and fake ones. ↩
Investigative methodology: this update was produced by scripts/scam_monitor.py from a real Dainik Bhaskar English report — not a language model. The quoted text above is verbatim from the source; the example email is a labelled recreation built only from details the source reports. Protection tips are matched from a fixed keyword list, not generated per story.
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