UPI, payments frauds soar high in eastern Indian states: Report

The eastern states in the country are witnessing high levels of digital frauds or UPI scams (41 per cent) via payment apps and online marketplaces, a report has revealed.

According to TrustCheckr, a fraud data insights and analytics startup, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam, Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim are facing top frauds in KYC, fake cash-back, frauds through digital wallets, fake-selling, QR codes, UPI phishing, lottery scams and financial fraud on social media.

The top scamsters are from Patna, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Meerut for one of the top payment apps (at 15 per cent) and most QR Code scams originate from Assam, accounting for 20 per cent of the total distribution.

"Top cities where fraudster syndicates are active are Kolkata, Delhi, Jaipur, Guwahati, Patna, Chandigarh, Meerut," the report mentioned.

In QR code frauds, most fraudsters posed themselves as army men selling something on marketplaces.

"Digital scams can trick users as they may appear as legitimate by revealing a few authentic details about them in order to earn their trust and move money. If it sounds too good to be true, one should be careful about such transactions. Our score parameters can give a go-ahead or early warning signs of fraud," said Shivraj Harsha, Co-founder, TrustCheckr.

TrustCheckr identified over 1 million frauds together in B2B and B2C in the last 15 months — 25 per cent scams in KYC and 20 per cent in QR codes, while B2B scams were largely done with 30 per cent fake identities and 25 per cent synthetic identity frauds.

"The common thread of digital payment frauds is phone number and email address. We check fraud signals with phone/email, validate the customer authenticity using historical fraud trends, fraud data sets, history and provide simple REST APIs with phone numbers as input, integration in less than 48 hours," said Adhip Ramesh, Founder, TrustCheckr.