Maya Venkat, a 28-12 months-vintage Bengaluru-based yoga instructor, saved herself from a fraudulent transaction of Rs 14,000 using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) utility. She turned to trying to promote her mattress on OLX, a platform for buying and selling goods.
On 21 May 2019, a person (fraudster) messaged Maya on OLX, inquiring about the product, and negotiated the rate. After nominal bargaining, she determined to sell the bed to this man or woman for Rs 28,000. Later, the man or woman requested if half of the amount as the deposit is appropriate to freeze this deal and whether or not he should switch this quantity to the use of any of the UPI apps.
She now agreed to close the deal and asked for a deposit of Rs 14,000 for using PhonePe (UPI app). After a few minutes, he gave a name to Ms. Venkat and engaged her in another conversation about how the furnishings could be transported, their location, and so forth.
Herein lay the trick. Recalls Maya, “In the middle of this discussion, the man or woman stated that he had sent a request at the UPI app for the improvement amount of Rs 14,000 as mentioned and frivolously asked me to accept it simply.”
Maya kept the decision on preserve and checked the message on the UPI app requesting to obtain the quantity. She was taken aback to look at a pop-up message on the UPI app from the character and understood that the request had changed to transfer the amount from her account to his account.
