Govt received over 61k complaints of digital payment fraud in 1 month
NEW DELHI: There were at least 61,100 complaints of financial frauds involving digital payments received by the government in the last month, according to data shared by officials who said there has been a sharp surge in such scams, and the recorded numbers itself may be a significant underestimate.
At 33,712, more than half of these complaints related to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), followed by 10,898 complaints of frauds involving debit or credit cards, or those involving swapping of mobile phone SIM cards.
The rest involved internet banking-related frauds (7,099), fraud or voice phishing calls (5,503), e-wallet thefts (3,010), demat account frauds (769) and email takeovers (187).
While the 61,178 cases in the 30-day period translate to a little over 2,000 cases a day, a person aware of the matter suggested the numbers have been higher than “the reported cases which have been averaging at nearly 2,500 per day over the last three-four months”. “The number of cases reported just on June 9 was 3,500.”
The person mentioned above said that in 2021, the cases averaged around 1,500 a day. “The cases being reported daily have nearly doubled,” the person said. The break up for 2021 and other months of 2022 was not immediately available.
The numbers are based on complaints reported to the government’s cybercrime portal.
The National Security Council Secretariat of India headed by Lt General Rajesh Pant held a meeting on Thursday last week to discuss measures to combat the increase, people aware of the matter said.
The meeting was attended by senior officials from the ministry of home affairs, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Reserve Bank of India. The NPCI did not respond to emails seeking a comment.
“There has been an exponential increase in cases as there is no regulatory mechanism to govern new technologies like UPI. Moreover, this is the tip of the iceberg. Many of these cases go unreported,” the person mentioned above said.
“It is well known that the exponential burst of financial crimes are substantially Upibased crimes. RBI cannot pass on its regulatory role to NPCI. It is imperative that banks and payment systems are made responsible and liable for Upibased crimes and the zero liability and limited liability mandates of RBI are better implemented and customers are made aware of such remedies,” said NS Nappinai, Supreme Court advocate and founder of Cybersaathi.
Nappinai added that the numbers are likely to be undercounts. “The numbers quoted do not reflect reality by a long stretch. Consistently, statistics does not reflect the true picture. Cybercrimes were substantially higher than was reported even two decades back and is merely increasing exponentially now thanks to the absence of effective enforcement,” she said.
Nappinai said that the intermediary safe harbours, that immunity from prosecution guaranteed under the IT Act, also need to be reviewed considering the expanding roles of various service providers such that customers are not blindsided or deprived of remedies.