Don’t rely on this ‘Reliance Jio’ ad offering free DTH subscrition

Facebook has been feeding a series of advertisements about Jio DTH (direct-to-home) services on its members’ timelines of late. Inviting people to share their personal details (name, mobile number and location) for the Jio DTH Prime Welcome Offer, the advertisements claim that over 23 lakh users have already registered for the scheme that offers free access to over 400 standard and high definition (SD/HD) channels for six months.

However, what the advertisement doesn’t tell you upfront is that the URLs (jiodthregistration.com, jiodthsettopboxreg.com, jio-dth-registration.in, etc) seeking personal details are not affiliated with Reliance or Jio in any way.

It’s only after clicking on the ‘terms and conditions’ link that one comes across their disclosure, which says: “The trade mark Jio, its logo, trade mark Reliance, its logo and other Services Marks and logos (are) owned by and/or licenced to Reliance/Jio and /or its affiliates (sic).” It further states, “The contest will choose random users to award them free Jio DTH. Since this contest is early than release of Jio DTH, you have to wait if you are selected.”

Two of the three URLs listed above feature identical content and look like a copy-paste job. The third URL fails to open, which also indicates that …read more