Reserve Bank of India has cautioned the public to be aware of online frauds, especially involving lotteries, and fraudsters who were faking websites of banks and RBI documents and circulars.

"While the RBI picks up only secondary information, the number of complaints of such online frauds is high... in Chennai it is one a day," RBI General Manager (Foreign Exchange Department) S K Maheswaran said.

Stating that even fake websites of RBI or commercial banks were being created to lure unsuspecting individuals, he asked the public to cross check anything puported to be RBI circular with informaton on its website 'www.rbi.org.in.'

A common online fraud was informing a person that he had won a lottery in London and asking him to deposit a sum towards processing charges. The tricksters get somebody to open a bank account and gives him a share. The money gets withdrawn immediately. But such transactions were a violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, he said.

Maheswaran, who was here to conduct an awareness campaign recently, said some tricksters cheat exporters by promising better prices in exchange for a registration fee or offering loans at cheaper interest rates.

RBI AGM A J George said website of all banks had "https" in the prefix of their website with the "s" standing for secured websites. While fraudsters could create fake bank websites with similar designs and identical address such fake sites would have only "http" prefix.

He said the banks would never ask the customers the PIN details of their accounts, especially over the telephone except while using their website. He also urged the people to avoid conducting bank transactions from internet cafes.