Paytm Wants Govt Help to Catch Fraudsters Stealing Money

The payment platform has acted on the frauds happening with its users, who’re being coerced into sending money.

Paytm users are getting a scary SMS and they should delete them ASAP.

(Photo: The Quint)

Scams have been rampant on apps like Paytm and other digital payment platforms in the country for a while. And it’s about time, these entities did something to help users from avoiding falling into trap of scammers.

Many users have been getting fake messages, saying their wallet account has been suspended owing to lack of KYC done for the same, and by doing this, the scammers end up stealing money from people’s account.

To minimise incidents like this, Paytm claims to have met with officials from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and CERT-in. The payments bank said it has explained the various phishing and fraudulent mobile phone SMS and call scams affecting digital payments users.

To make a strong case for its action-oriented claim, Paytm says it has shared a list of mobile numbers that has been involved in this racket.

“Paytm Payments Bank has submitted a comprehensive list of 3,500 phone numbers to TRAI, MHA, and CERT-in, which have been actively involved in SMS and call scams. To further ensure the security of digital payments users, PPB has filed an FIR against these criminals with Cyber Cell for an immediate action to stop this scam.”

Satish Gupta, MD & CEO - Paytm Payments Bank

That’s not all, Paytm has shared a list of short codes that have been used by the scammers to gain trust of users. These codes are used to send SMS to a person, and when they see the message has come from ‘Paytm’, they think it’s an official message from the company.

“PPB has also given a list of SMS ‘short codes’ to MHA, TRAI, and CERT-in where the name of the company’s brand has been falsely used in the sender identification details of SMSes. Fraudsters send SMSs with short codes like “PYTM” to gain trust of the victim, and then defraud them.”

Satish Gupta, MD & CEO - Paytm Payments Bank

In addition to this, PPB has discussed with the telecom regulatory body, asking telecom operators who sell bulk SMS services to strengthen their ‘know your business’ (KYB) process to ensure that legitimate merchants gain access to the consumer database.

“This should include a detailed on-boarding process and proper documentation. On non-adherence to the processes, there should be a provision of stringent fines and other penal measures.”

Satish Gupta, MD & CEO - Paytm Payments Bank

The payments platform also wants telcos to offer the option to trace such fraudulent numbers, which allows them to take legal action and give platforms like Paytm the power to request telcos to immediately block phone numbers and short codes that are sending fraudulent SMSes.

With digital payments becoming a convenient way to pay and buy items from stores, more people are joining the bandwagon but this has also become an attractive point for hackers, who can fool people and steal money from them digitally. It’s time for people to become digitally aware and vigilant about such wrongdoings and report them at the earliest.