UPI or Unified Payments Interface is an immediate real-time payment system, developed by the National Payments Corporation of India or NPCI. UPI allows you to transfer money instantly from one bank to another, through a mobile application. The main advantage of UPI is it allows multiple bank accounts to fit into a single mobile application.
The number of people using UPI in India is on the rise. According to the data released by NPCI, transactions via Unified payments interface (UPI), crossed a value of Rs 1 Trillion in December 2018.
As the number of people using UPI is on the rise, UPI Payment Frauds are also increasing. Since the last two months, fraudsters are making use of UPI to carry out fraud and steal money from your bank account and those of other innocent people. There are many UPI fraud complaints where people have lost hard earned money to UPI frauds.
See Also: Everything You Need To Know On UPI
1. Recently an SBI account holder lost Rs 1 Lakh after he linked his bank account on the Google Pay app. Fraudsters hacked his Google Pay account and transferred money to a Paytm account through UPI.
2. In another incident, a Noida-based UPI (Unified Payments Interface) app user lost Rs 6.8 Lakhs from his SBI savings account to UPI Fraud. In the period of 2 months, the money got transferred 7 times from his bank account and he didn’t even get any SMS alert for the same. He was not even aware that Rs 6 lakhs had been transferred from his account, until he went to the ATM to withdraw cash.
3. Last year, three bank customers from Kerala lost Rs 12 Lakh from their bank accounts due to UPI fraud. One thing in common with these 3 people was all used United Payments Interface (UPI) smartphone application for "account to account" electronic cash transfer.
Normally, UPI app frauds take place due to two reasons. Users might have shared personal information or they might have downloaded the fraudulent app instead of the genuine app.
In the above-mentioned case, users lost money due to UPI fraud only after they shared their personal banking information with the fraudsters, who claimed to be calling from the bank. Fraudsters used these details to create another account on UPI and transferred money to their accounts.
1. Do not share your personal banking details like card number, CVV, OTP, UPI ID, and PIN with anyone over the phone or even as a message. No banks will call or send mails seeking such details.
2. Never send money to unverified sources.
3. Never send messages which contain unknown codes to an unknown number. Sending SMS with unknown codes to the unknown number can lead to SIM swap or SIM spoofing frauds. In case you receive calls asking you to send a message to an unknown number, kindly ignore them.
4. You must never download apps from unknown sources. If you are an android user, you must download apps from Play Store and iPhone users must download apps from App Store (iOS).
5. Read the reviews and ratings before downloading the app. Do not download apps which have got bad ratings and reviews.
6. Do not post transaction details on social media platforms.
7. In the case of any suspicious activity in your bank account, report to the bank immediately.
See Also: How To Avoid Digital Banking Frauds?
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