Pune cyber crime police see spurt in cases of UPI-based payment frauds

The facility of generating payment requests on a few UPI platforms is being used by fraudsters to cheat victims, say officials of the Pune city cyber police

The cyber crime police of Pune have seen a spurt in the number of cases involving homegrown method of Unified Payment Interface (UPI)-based payments in the city.

Two such cases were registered in Vishrantwadi when two women, unknown to each other, received calls in response to their advertisement on the e-commerce platform for sale of household items (PICTURE FOR REPRESENTATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY)

While there are multiple ways deployed to dupe gullible users, the problem arises especially with platforms that provide an option to generate payment requests. UPI-based payment options Google Pay and PhonePe are extremely popular in the country.

The facility of generating payment requests on a few UPI platforms is being used by fraudsters to cheat victims, say officials of the Pune city cyber police.

In four cases, one of the above-mentioned two UPI-based payment options, was used as a mode of committing fraud after convincing the victim to download the application for smoother transactions. In all four cases, the victims had registered a household item for sale on an e-commerce platform.

Two such cases were registered in Vishrantwadi when two women, unknown to each other, received calls in response to their advertisement on the e-commerce platform for sale of household items. Both women lost Rs 50,000 each as the caller sent them a payment request disguised as a payment.

A woman from Erandwane, lost Rs 23,999 in the exact same manner on September 29. On October 9, a woman from Wakad was asked to scan a QR code to receive payment for a fridge she wanted to sell on the e-commerce platform. She received a link after scanning the code and lost Rs 49,986.

These cases were registered at various police stations in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad under Section 420 (punishment for cheating) of Indian Penal Code along with Sections 66(c), 66(d) of Information Technology Act.

Cases registered by Pune cyber crime branch

Cheating fraud

2018: 3,654

2019: 4,573

Cheating business fraud

2018: 561

2019: 1,795

Social media

2018: 824

2019: 814

Hacking

2018: 157

2019: 111

Data theft

2018: 32

2019: 15

Mobile offences

2018: 106

2019: 88

Total

2018: 5,524

December 26, 2019: 7,564

-All numbers until December 26, 2019

-There are multiple sub-titles under every title under which the data gets recorded

-The format is updated annually to fit increasing types of online crimes

-Cyber police station was given machinery to register FIRs in June 2019

WHAT IS UPI?

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience. Each Bank provides its own UPI App for Android, Windows and iOS mobile platform(s).

Source: cashlessindia.gov.in

Examples of UPI-based services

Google Pay

PhonePe

BHIM

PayTM

MobiKwik

SBIPay

Bank applications