Mumbai businessman puts up camera for sale, cheated of ₹20,000

The accused allegedly tricked the complainant into believing he was getting paid through a mobile application, when in fact he was losing money from his account.

A 33-year-old businessman from Khar who put up his camera for sale on an online marketplace was cheated of ₹20,000 by a cyber-criminal. The accused allegedly tricked the complainant into believing he was getting paid through the Google Pay mobile application, when in fact he was losing money from his account.

A first information report (FIR) has been registered against an unidentified accused. (Representational photo)

A Google spokesperson said users should be careful and that, ““Google Pay users need to be mindful that a transaction which requires them to enter their PIN, is for sending money...Google Pay explicitly points out the direction of the money flow in the user interface to make it easy for them to distinguish between ‘send’ and ‘receive’ requests. Also, if they receive a payment request from someone who they do not know or cannot immediately identify, they should immediately decline.”

According to the Khar police, the complainant on May 26 had put up an advertisement on an online marketplace for his second hand camera. The same evening, the cyber-fraudster called him expressing his interest in buying the camera.

The accused said he wanted to send the complainant an advance payment of ₹20,000 and asked the complainant to send him his Google Pay app’s QR code. Shortly after the complainant sent the QR code, he received a message from his bank that ₹20,000 had been withdrawn from his account. The fraudster then disconnected the call and switched off his phone. The complainant realised he had been duped and approached the police the next day.

Cyber law advocate, Vicky Shah, said, “QR code is shared for receiving or sending payments. In this case it appears that the perpetrator has used the receive/collect feature of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) based on Google Pay. It seems the victim did not read whether the request was for receiving or making a payment and may have been duped.” A police officer from Khar police station said, “We have registered the FIR and are taking efforts to trace the accused.”