The one rule
Everything in this article reduces to a single test, and if you remember only one thing, remember this one.
VSVSV is a private learning platform. It is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by the Ministry of Defence, the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force, or any recruiting body. We do not conduct, influence, or take part in recruitment or selection. This article is study material. It is not a recruitment notification. It confers no entitlement of any kind.
A genuine recruitment routes back to an official portal — that portal is named in an official notification, published by the recruiting body itself.
Every fraud has to break that chain somewhere, because the fraudster cannot put anything on the recruiting body's own portal. So the question to ask of any message, page, advertisement or person is simply: where does this route, and did an official notification name it?
The six signs
1 · A payment to a person, an account, or a UPI handle
Where a service charges an examination fee, the notification states the amount and the official payment route. No legitimate recruitment collects money through an individual's account. Nor through a UPI handle given over a phone call, nor through a payment link in a message.
This is the sign that appears in almost every case, because it is the point of the exercise.
2 · A promise of selection
A "confirmed seat", a "reserved vacancy", a "quota", a "reference", a "guaranteed selection", a "back-door entry", a "name in the list". None of these exists in any of these recruitments.
Selection runs through a published process — a written examination, a physical test, a medical examination, and a merit list. There is no route around it, and anyone offering one is describing something that is not there.
3 · Urgency
"Today only", "last three seats", "the list closes tonight". Urgency is there to stop you checking, which tells you exactly what checking would find.
A real notification has dates, and those dates are on the official portal. You can always take an hour.
4 · A private channel for your documents
A WhatsApp number, a personal email address, or a messaging account collecting your certificates for "verification" or "processing". Recruiting bodies collect documents through their own portal and check originals in person.
Documents handed to a stranger are documents in somebody else's hands, and that has costs beyond the recruitment.
5 · A near-miss web address, or a page that looks official
A domain that resembles an official one with a word added, a letter changed, or a different ending. A page carrying an emblem, a seal, or an official-looking layout.
A layout is not an authority — anyone can reproduce a header. The test is not whether the page looks official — it is whether an official notification named that address.
6 · An offer to do something no private party can do
Correcting your certificate through a contact. Arranging an exemption. Getting your name onto a list. Obtaining a document from a recruiting body.
No private party can do any of these, ourselves included. An offer to do them is not a service; it is the fraud itself.
Where to check instead
Always route back to the source.
- For the Indian Army, your own Army Recruiting Office's notification and portal.
- For Agniveervayu, the Central Airmen Selection Board recruitment portal.
- For the Indian Navy, the Join Indian Navy portal.
Type the address from the notification rather than following a link you were sent. Where you do not have the notification, get it from the recruiting body's own site first, and take everything else from there.
What we are, so you can place us correctly
We are a private learning platform. We sell and give away study material. We take no part in recruitment or selection, and we cannot influence either.
We cannot register you, verify you, correct a document, obtain an exemption, arrange anything with a recruiting body, or affect a result. If anyone claims to do any of that in our name, they are not us. Judge us by the same test as everything else in this article: we route you to the official portals and we never stand between you and one.
If you have already engaged
If you have only shared documents — stop the conversation. Keep the messages — do not delete them. Be alert to the documents being reused elsewhere, and consider what identity documents you have exposed.
If you have paid money — keep every record: the transaction reference, the number or account you paid, the messages, and any page you were sent to. Report it to the police, through a cyber-crime complaint. Report it to the recruiting body as well, using the contact route in the official notification, because they act against notices misusing their name.
In either case, do not send more money — A common second stage is a request for a further payment to "release", "refund" or "complete" the first.
And do not be embarrassed into silence — these operations are practised, they target people at a moment when they very much want the thing being offered, and being taken in says nothing about the candidate. Reporting it is what limits the next one.
What to do
- Apply the one rule to everything: does this route back to an official portal named in an official notification?
- Take addresses from the notification, never from a message.
- Pay nothing to an individual, ever.
- Treat urgency as a warning sign rather than a reason to hurry.
- Keep the notification PDF, because it is the document everything is checked against.
Related reading
- Registering on the Official Recruitment Portals — Three Services, Three Portals
- How to Read a Recruitment Notification Properly — the Six Clauses That Decide Everything
- The Seva Nidhi in Practice — One Lump Sum, and No Second One
This article is general guidance written from publicly available recruitment notifications and scheme documents issued by the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force and the Ministry of Defence. Eligibility, exam patterns, physical standards, pay and scheme terms are revised with each recruitment cycle, and every figure stated here is pinned to the cycle it was read from. Always confirm current specifics against the live notification on the official portal of the service you are applying to. VSVSV is a private learning platform. It is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by the Ministry of Defence, the Indian Armed Forces, or any recruiting body. It takes no part in recruitment or selection.