Several Founders, Co-Founders, CXO Bankers, CXO Fintech professional & people who participated in the ePanel discussions:
- Mr. Alok Karkera, Head – India Public Sector & North India Financial Institutions Group, Corporate Banking Citi Bank
- Ms. Maitreyi Bodake, Senior Solution Advisor- Strategy, Innovation & Transformation at Deloitte
- Mr. Anagat Pareek, SVP Cyber Security & Site Reliability Engineering at Paytm
- Mr. Sunil Kulkarni, Joint Managing Director, Oxigen Services (India) Pvt Ltd
- Mr. Hemal Shah, Technical Product Manager, Mastercard
- Mr. Neeraj Chandra, Head of Operations and Technology, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
- Mr. Rajiv Rai, former Chief Digital Officer, Edelweiss
- Mr. Shirsha Ghosh, Co-Founder Torit Innovations
- Mr. Vishweshwaran R, Vice President-Business Technology Group at IDFC FIRST Bank
- Mr. Abhishek Mody, Associate Director-Payment & Digital Initiatives, IDFC Bank
- Mr. Ratnakar V, Head – Mobile Money, Phongsavanh Bank, Lao PDR
- Vikas R Panditrao, Co-Founder, Forum of Industry and Academic Knowledge Sharing (FIAKS)
- Many other CEO/CXO Bankers & Fintech professionals on FIAKS Forum requested to remain anonymous
With digitization capturing the space it is also paving the way for fraudsters with growing opportunities of making frauds. Also, fraudsters are coming up with new ways of defrauding people each day. Check this article which is quite disturbing how digital space is creating a havoc “QR code scams are on the rise in Bengaluru” [1]
Now, Let’s understand how so many people are falling into the trap of this QR code scam: A community member shared his personal experience- “He posted one Ad on OLX. Thereupon, the scammer called him and bargained normally. The scammer then asked him to courier the phone and it was agreed to make payment via Google Pay. The scammer then sends a QR code of Freecharge and asked him to scan. However, the member was aware of the fraud and so continued further and scanned the QR and the message written below it was “Amount is transferred to your account”. The scammer then asked him to continue and check the balance after putting the PIN. The member changed the bank account where he had no funds and the transaction failed due to insufficient funds. The scammer again sent him QR codes for fewer values stating different technical terms like a merchant account, payment gateway, MDR, etc. The member disconnected the call finally.”
How does this QR code scam actually work?
- The scammers contact you and show interest in purchasing whatever you are selling without checking the item in person and insisting on online payment. Immediately you get a link to click on in your phone. Foolishly enough the link uses verbiage “Click here to transfer amount Rs. XXXX”.
- Basically, the scammers use social engineering to con victims into allowing them to scan the QR code on their own phone. By doing so, the victims provide the scammers with the login credentials to their banking environment.
- With login credentials in hand, it’s easy for the scammers to make some payments on your behalf into their own controlled accounts. They then use money mules to convert those payments into cash and are able to use it freely without any doubt of suspicion.
Here are some other QR code scams:
- Besides the fake banking phishing scam, there also have been reports of where through QR codes it was possible to download malware onto the victim’s device.
- Yet another scam where scammers replace public and unguarded QR codes with their own so that payments would flow directly to them.
- For example, in China where people share bikes and for that they have to pay in advance to unlock the bike, so here the fraudsters replace the QR codes on numerous bikes with some of their own. This enables a lot of (small) payments directly into the fraudsters account, and many potential bike renters would switch off when the bike fails to unlock and move on to the next one to try their luck.
Now coming to UPI frauds:
- UPI is being heavily promoted for its simplicity enabling masses to use this payment option. However, the fraudsters are causing hindrance and creating distrust in the minds of common people. Have a look at the graph which shows the rise in UPI transactions which again from fraudsters’ perspective gives them a glowing opportunity to create more frauds.
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