“Where Is Our Promised Cashback?”: BHIM App Users Left High & Dry

BHIM users have raised a collective appeal for the app to honour its cashback commitments, pending for over a month.

(Photo: Erum Gour/The Quint)

In April, BHIM App had advertised a cashback offer up to Rs 750 for new and existing customers. In August, users are flooding social media with complaints about cashbacks that have been pending for a month.

Users of Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), an app designed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), have alleged that the app has not honoured its advertised promises. According to the terms of the offer, users were supposed to receive cashbacks for June transactions by 10 July.

In addition to non-receipt of cashback money, users have also expressed frustration about a grievance redressal helpline that they say is nearly impossible to get through to.

“I had downloaded the app based on BHIM’s promise of giving up to Rs 750 as cashback on transactions made through its platform. It has been 40 days and I am yet to receive Rs 600 due to me for June,” said Harish Singaluri, a resident of Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh. Scores of users have echoed Singaluri’s complaint, citing similar dismal experiences with the app.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

What BHIM Had Advertised

BHIM is a payment app through which registered users can send and receive money into their bank accounts by using the Unified Payment Interface (UPI).
Here’s how the scheme worked:

• The Rs 750 cashback consisted of two components – Part A and Part B
• PART A: Customers would receive Rs 25 cashback on every unique transaction of Rs 100 and above. The maximum cashback one can get is Rs 500. This means that a user can receive Rs 25 on 20 such transactions.
• Part B: For minimum transaction value of Rs 10 and above, the customer is eligible for cashbacks under the following slabs. A hundred such transactions or above in a month qualifies a customer for Rs 250 cashback. Therefore Part A and Part B combine to make up Rs 750.

In addition, new app users were also offered Rs 51 cashback on their first transaction.

Why Users Are Unhappy

Hundreds have taken to Twitter to express how, despite repeatedly enquiring from BHIM, NPCI and even the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), they still have not received the amount promised to them. The NPCI and BHIM’s tweets over the past couple of weeks have been inundated with complaints and requests for refunds from disgruntled users.

According to the scheme, BHIM would credit the cashback amount by the 10th of the following month. Cashback for June, then, would get credited by 10 July. Customers spoke to The Quint about a similarly harrowing experience in June when they received cashbacks for May after the due date of 10 June and only after registering complaints with the app.

“I did not receive the cashback amount of Rs 600 for June by 10 July. Upon writing to them, the officials said it would get credited by 16 July but that didn’t happen either,” said Singaluri. “I wrote to NPCI as well as the IT Ministry stating my plight, but there is still no assurance about my money,” he added.

In response to some of the tweets in the comments section, BHIM stated that the scheme had been modified and for transactions from 1 July, it only applies to new users and not existing ones. Customers, however, continue to ask about the cashback due to them for the the month of June.

It is noteworthy that while BHIM advertised its promotional offer on Twitter, it notified users of the change only through replies to complaints.

“It is acceptable that they decided to change the offer but what is not acceptable is that past transactions prior to July have not been honoured. My mother, too, is facing the same harassment,” Singaluri told The Quint.

BHIM boasts of 30 million downloads as of June. If one were to assume that half the customers are due Rs 100 (much below the upper limit of Rs 750), the sum would be a carnival of zeroes at Rs 150 crore. Even by conservative estimates, this is a staggering amount for the government to shell out.

Failed Transaction Woes

Users who spoke with The Quint also pointed towards a grievance redressal mechanism that they allege is “broken”. They said that even getting through to the helpline was a struggle and even if they did, there was little help on offer from the other end.

Junaid Shaikh, 32, a resident of Ahmedabad who works in a private company, said he had sent Rs 10,000 through BHIM on 7 July , which failed to go through. “Since i had used the app in my wife’s smartphone, her bank account acknowledged the transaction and showed a debit of the same amount but the app says transaction is “pending” Shaikh told The Quint.

Shaikh had sent two payments of Rs 20,000 to a friend which went through, but the third payment of Rs 10,000 remained “pending” since 7 July and never reached his friend. “I have made repeated requests for a refund and even provided the 12-digit transaction ID, which the helpline says does not exist on their database,” Khan added.

(Photo courtesy: Junaid Shaikh)

BHIM-o-nomics

BHIM, since its launch in December 2016, has chalked up impressive numbers with regards to downloads, transactions amount and value. Till 29 June 2018, according to BHIM’s own figures, the app has been downloaded over 30 million times – 29.41 million on Android and 1.47 million on iOS.

• The number of live banks connected to the app has nearly tripled from 31 in December 2016 to 92 in June 2018.
• The app registered 139.48 million transactions in May 2018, which jumped to 235.65 million in July. Users attribute this jump to a spike in downloads after the cashback scheme was announced.
• The transaction value jumped from Rs 33,288.51 crore to Rs 45,845. 64 crore between May and July this year.

Nearly two months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on 8 November 2016, he launched the BHIM App on 30 December. The app was introduced to encourage citizens to adopt cashless digital transactions.

On Saturday, 4 August, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council decided to start a pilot project to give 20 percent cashback on the GST paid in an attempt to incentivise digital payments in the country.

"Under the project, consumers will get a 20 percent cashback subject to cap of Rs 100 on all UPI and USSD transactions as well as transactions made using RuPay card and BHIM app," Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said.

This announcement on GST cashbacks, along with a new offer of Rs 150 cashbacks, have invited more anger from customers who feel stung by the previous unfulfilled promise.

This incident, however, isn’t the first controversy for BHIM in recent times.

On 28 July, the same day as RS Sharma’s publication of his Aadhaar number on Twitter, a user, Anivar Aravind, had successfully deposited Re 1 into Sharma’s account through BHIM. In doing so, he exposed a flaw which allows users to deposit money with just the Aadhaar number of the receiver.

When contacted, the NPCI was unavailable for comment on the issue. This story will be updated should they respond.