Digi wallets safe store for phished cash

Instead, the new modus operandi is to transfer it to digital wallet accounts, said officers in the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the city police.

“Once they transfer the money to applications such as Paytm, Mobikwik and PhonePe, from which they spend directly. The trail shows that the money has been spent as Ola Money, Facebook ads, Retail Atom, Flipkart Pay, Airtel Money, etc., which is not easy to reimburse. For example, Ola will say that the money has been utilised,” said a police officer.

As these applications are one step removed from traditional banking operations, the police are finding it difficult to trace the criminals or return the money to the victims.

Also, as there are no nodal officers for these payment applications like in banks whom they can get in touch with, the police are not having an easy time in cracking such cases,

“We can only mail them and wait for their response. In some cases, the payment firms stall the transactions but they don’t reimburse the amount to victims. In some cases, we had to fight with these merchants to get the money for complainants,” said an inspector attached to the Anti-Bank Fraud Wing.

CCB sleuths noted that it was difficult to get details of fraudsters because other than their mobile phone numbers, the digital wallets have only the bare basic info on their customers who have not completed the Know Your Customer (KYC) norms. “We have confirmed that these fraudsters are operating from Chennai.They will be nabbed soon,” said an officer.

“Recently, a 72-year-old manlost Rs 98,000 from his bank account and Rs 56,000 more from his wife’s account, as the fraudster who called him knew that the couple have separate accounts in the same branch. While the one-time password should not be shared, the victims are made to believe that the caller is indeed from the respective banksbecause they have all the particulars of an account holder. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is another mode used by fraudsters to steal debit card details to steal from bank accounts,” said the officer.

Recently, a meeting was held with representatives of different banks in which they were asked to increase the security features to prevent customers falling prey to phishers. “While it is a customer’s responsibility to be careful of fraudsters, it would be better if banks enhance their security features on cyberspace and RBI bring in strict norms for payment applications,” opined officers.