Mobile Wallet Frauds On The Rise

Mobile Wallet Frauds On The Rise

PUNE: A 25-year-old girl who had placed an advertisement to sell her furniture on OLX website of  Rs 98,000 by an unidentified person who posed as a genuine buyer and asked the victim to download ‘Google Pay’ mobile application before scamming her. As she placed the advertisement to sell the furniture, she was approached by the fraudster who asked her to download the application so that he can transfer her the money. However, the fraudster linked the ‘Google Pay’ account of the victim and asked her to approve certain transactions. She did as instructed, only to find Rs 98,000 had gone missing from her bank account.

In another incident, a Kothrud-based businessman was also cheated to the tune of Rs 80,000 by an unidentified person. The Kothrud police said that the victim was approached by the fraudster who expressed interest in buying engine oil worth Rs 52,000. The fraudster then asked the victim to accept payment through Phonepe application. The fraudster asked the victim to accept his requests and Rs 20,000 was debited from the victim’s account four times.

A 46-year-old man who was planning to buy a Kitchen rack from OLX was cheated of Rs 28,825 by an unidentified person. These are few incidents which reflect how fraudsters are now taking advantage of people unaware about proper use of digital payment applications. 

Cyber expert Niranjan Reddy, who is also the founder of Netconclave System, said that while people are excited about using such applications, they must also take care to know the nitty-gritty of such applications. “People should not link multiple accounts to the payment applications or they will end up losing all their money in a fraud. Similarly, people can do small transactions and verify them before dealing in high-value transactions. People should also see to it that they download genuine applications from authentic links,” added Reddy.

He pointed out that the digital payment applications are of ISO standards and are safe but users need to take extra care to avoid goof-ups. “People should question themselves whether it is right or wrong while doing the transactions and follow basic cyber hygiene,” added Reddy. 

Cyber expert Rohit Srivastwa said that people fail to check for whether the links are asking for debit or credit in a bank account. “Once people are confident of using the application then only they should go ahead for transactions with unknown persons and save themselves from fraud.”

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