I4C and Amazon Drive Festive Season Awareness on Online Scams

Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), established by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, and Amazon India are collaborating to launch #ScamSmartIndia, a nationwide initiative designed to safeguard consumers from the growing rising threat of online scams and fraud. This partnership aims to take scam literacy to the grassroots, making it accessible, relatable, and actionable by combining education, awareness, and technology-led prevention.

As part of the campaign, I4C and Amazon will jointly drive a series of initiatives at a national and regional level in the coming months. These include engaging social media content that transforms complex fraud scenarios into easy-to-understand safety tips, digital ads featuring safety advisories that reach millions of households, educational flyers in Amazon packages that turn each delivery into a personal safety reminder, weekly multilingual tips under the ‘Scam-Free September’ initiative to guide consumers to shop safely during the festive season and a national hackathon to develop AI-powered solutions for scam detection and prevention.

Sh Nishant Kumar, Director, I4C, added, "Shopping is a natural part of every Indian household in the festive season. It is also a time of heightened fraudulent activity by scamsters who try to dupe consumers, particularly vulnerable groups like first-time internet users and senior citizens. This partnership with Amazon will create awareness for consumers on how to detect frauds and avoid falling prey to them. We are happy to work together with Amazon in India to further the objective of preventing online scams and enabling a safe shopping experience."

Rakesh Bakshi, Vice President - Legal, Amazon India, said, "At Amazon, customer trust is our highest priority. When scammers misuse names of known brands to lure customers to divulge, they don't just harm businesses – they damage consumer confidence in the entire digital economy of the country. Through our partnership with I4C, we want to take proactive steps to create practical solutions that educate and empower shoppers to recognize, avoid, and report scams."

This collaboration marks a pivotal step towards building a safer digital India, underscoring a shared commitment to protecting consumers. It comes at a crucial juncture, with over half of all fraud cases in India occurring online, and risks particularly high during festive shopping seasons, as highlighted in a recent McAfee report.

The initiative also builds on Amazon’s ongoing efforts to safeguard its customers. The company actively engages with various industry bodies to conduct capacity building workshops across the country to educate consumers about safe online shopping practices.