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Someone attempted this with me. GPay has an option to request money so when the guy said I am sending you the amount on GPay my first comment was "Request mat karna, payment karna". The guy got baffled and speechless on call and himself hung up Lol

This was my first experience with this type of scam and I had also posted furniture on Olx.

Oh, good to know. I haven't used PayTM in a long time. Their password nonsense (at least back then) combined with so many of my friends / co-workers getting their money stolen etc made me delete my account and the app.

Thanks for the update tho :)

All the suggestions here are like treating a symptom of a disease not finding the root cause of the disease.

I always follow the below mentioned precautions though there is nothing 100 % safe:
1. Get a high end debit card with lot of features and SET your transaction limits in merchant outlets (eg. RS. 10000) and online transaction sites (eg. RS. 5000).
2. DISABLE INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTION IN YOUR CREDIT AND DEBIT CARDS. Most of the high value fraudulent transactions keep happening due to foreign scammers.
3. Get a credit card. For example, Amazon pay card is very easy to get. Like GTO pointed, it is banks money and they will make all the efforts to get it. But that's only the good part. In order to report a fraudulent transaction in a credit card with your bank, the process is cumbersome and the customer support is pretty average. I have read stories about few customers getting their issues resolved after 6 months even with top banks! Just Google it.
4. Try following Wallet minimalism. Have a max of two wallets, one which everybody and every businesses use (eg. G Pay) and the other one of your preference. Don't have account in all the wallets for cashbacks. They stop after sometime. Most importantly delete the dormant wallet accounts and just uninstalling it will not help in any way.
5. Minimize giving your phone number every where for billing.

Hope this helps!

There is nothing fundamentally wrong in the money request function. In fact it's a convenient feature. It is not like someone sending their cheque to be signed by you in order for you to receive a payment. The person who sends request is the one who receives payment from you when you approve of it.

A genuine request will always be from a known person and the amount too would be known. E.g. landlord asking for payment of rent every month. The landlord would be known and the rent amount would be known to the tenant. Technology is there for convenience. One should know how to use it safely with adequate precautions. Thumb rule is never tell OTP or PIN to anyone when transacting using Paytm, Bhim App, Phone Pe, Google Pay etc. etc. Another point to remember is that to receive money, an OTP or PIN is never required. It is required only when sending money.

QR code is ALWAYS for sending money and never for receiving money.

On the contrary I prefer to use "only" digital mode for carrying out the transactions. Most of the "financial" mishaps can be prevented if we are vigilant. We should be absolutely sure about the permissions granting to various apps in our phone. I have been an ardent follower of digital transactions and now the wonder app called samsung pay has made it almost cashless. It carry my 10+ credit cards, 5+bank accounts and 3+wallets.Till now I have not lost even a single paisa. So most of the things can be prevented if we are careful. Better to understand and manage the available technology rather than stereotyping and staying away from it.

As others have mentioned before, use only CC (bank's money), as far as possible.
I use CC apps to lock out all the transactions, only unblocking for those few minutes when actually doing the payment, locking immediately afterward.
A little paranoid, but provides (some) peace of mind.

Here in lies the problem. Not everyone is tech savvy and not everyone learns stuff quickly.
Unless you know exactly what you're doing, stick to what you're comfortable with. A little inconvenience is better than listing hard earned money

Very true - there is no need to link a bank account or even store a card to topup wallet despite apps try to force you to do that.

My rules are below:

1. PayTM - One of my cars have PayTM fastag. Before a trip, I go to PayTM website and add some 500Rs using my credit card (which I've to ensure I don't check the "save card" button). I use PayTM only for that.
2. PhonePe - been using it for a year with ONLY UPI. I find UPI to be quite safe - just follow one caution that if you enter PIN, money will go *out*. I use it for all bill payments and for fastag topup.
3. I never use any mobile app for banking. Always use only netbanking on personal laptop; if I need to, for regular banking - that too with incognito mode browser (would've liked to use Tor, but most banks block the site with IP addresses coming from outside India). I keep getting message by my banks to install their app on phone - sorry folks, will never do it.
4. I never use debit cards anywhere other than bank's ATM, preferably the one attached to the branch. Debit card online transactions take lot of effort to get refunded if there is a problem - some Indian banks used to take about 60 days after your complaint is accepted.
5. For credit card online transactions, choose one that allows you to set limits per transaction, per day, international vs local etc. I keep limits under 10000 per day for national and under 1000 for international. When you have larger purchases online, you usually plan it out and change it before doing transaction.

IMHO, this is what happened with the OP's friend:

1. Scammer calls claiming to be PayTM rep and says your KYC is incomplete and account will get disabled.
2. Scammer claims to fix this for which you need to install a certain app (Teams Viewer).
3. Once installed scammer takes control of your phone, (scams) talks you into loading funds into your PayTM account via GPay/netbanking, etc and since can see your screen also makes a note of your password / PIN.
4. Before you know what has happened you are already lighter by 25-50-100k!
5. Post the call the scammer will also attempt to login to your PayTM account to continue the scam.

I know this modus operandi is very common as someone in my family has been scammed this way! These scammers are smart and know their targets (senior citizens are most common).

The best prevention to such scams is to be AWARE of how online transactions work.
In my case I have asked my parents (both senior citizens) to NOT entertain ANY calls claiming to be from a bank / CC company / PayTM etc. and simply ask the rep to call me.

On 31st December, 1730hrs, I was paying money in a pharmacy store using G.Pay QR scanner. Message on my phone says : failed transaction.
Tried once again - failed
Tried again - failed
Tried again - success. hurray!
Reached home, relaxing on couch while I was casually checking ICICI imobile app. :Shockked: an amount of 1840/- was debited 4 times from my account.
Quickly ran back to the pharmacy and showed my account statement in the app.
He quickly checked his mobile for the receipt of all the 4 transactions 1840*4 and returned cash for the balance amount without uttering an word.:Cheering:
Not sure whom to blame here.

PS: I've not received any messages from ICICI during the whole process.

I dont know if this qualifies as a scam or not. But here it goes.

• I had ordered some products from an Instagram shop profile.
• Made the payment by NetBanking.
• Products delivered but looked very cheap and not at all as in the pictures. Asked seller for refund and he agreed without argument.
• Couriered the products and seller said will refund me the amount in my PayTM wallet, to which I agreed.
• Received the money in my wallet.
• Next day, money deducted from my wallet. PayTM notification says seller reported his transaction (of putting money in my wallet) as done by mistake.
• I raise a ticket, but paytm closes it without a valid response.
• I escalated the matter with all proofs and screenshots to PayTM team but they acted very lousy.
• Eventually frustrated and gave up! :Frustrati
• Uninstalled PayTM, never used after that.

Now I only use Google Pay. But I have only liked by secondary account to Google pay. The balance there is never more than 10-15k. So my exposure to any fraud is limited.

Didn't even know this was possible. Can someone send you money and then do this and ask it back. Wth! Never taking any payment on Paytm from now.

I don't think it is possible.
A mistake is a mistake and money is lost out of his pocket! How can PayTM just deduct the money from your wallet without even an enquiry? :Frustrati

Blame Google Pay and switch to semi-Atmanirbhar PhonePe.

Google Pay has had a track record of being the one of the most unreliable UPI app for me. There is a 30-40% chance that my next transaction will fail or be stuck in limbo.

My experience with PhonePe has been much more positive. The transaction either completes successfully or fails (if I do something wrong) but it's never stuck on 'Processing Payment' which is a staple on Google Pay.