Thread by @indradhanush92

📢❗️PSA: A thread on scamsters running on sites like OLX / Quikr:

Earlier today I posted an add on OLX to sell a table. Within minutes of posting the add, I receive a DM from an interested buyer. He agrees to buy at the asking price. No negotiations.

The timestamp in the above screenshot is in UTC. So it's around 7:40am IST in the morning.

We exchange a couple of calls. He tells me he wants to buy and prefers an online mode of payment and can't do cash. He also tells me he'd pay now and send someone to collect it soon.

He's apparently in the army and can't come right now as he's "on duty" at the moment. So he'll send a "worker" after making the payment. This is when I start becoming suspicious. I also recollect seeing a thread about such scams on Twitter previously.

He asks me for Google Pay. And tells me that he would "swipe debit card" on his end and send me the payment. Having worked at a payments company I know he can't pay me like that. I'm not a merchant.

Nevertheless. I decide to roll with it. See if I can get more info on him without giving it away immediately. I send him my QR code over Whatsapp.

His profile pic seems to have a photo of the Indian army. Probably to earn trust from potential victims. He kept repeating on the calls that he's from the Indian army. Without me asking what he did for a living.

He calls me on my number and tells me to open Google pay and that I should check all transactions. Google pay doesn't open as it needs internet. He recognizes this problem immediately and asks me to call him from a different number. I call him up from my father's number.

He claims to have sent me Rs 100 on Google pay. I receive a "pay" request of Rs 4999 instead. He's trying to convince me that it's 4999 because he's sent 100. He tells me to click proceed to pay on the request.

I click "pay" to see what he's going to tell me next. He tells me that if I click "Proceed to Pay" and enter my Pin I'd get two options, "Credit" and "Debit". And that I should choose "Credit" instead.

I've done this UPI payment thing many times and once you've entered your pin, there's no going back. I ask him innocently, that why does it say "pay" when he's the one supposed to send me money. He doesn't have a convincing answer and keeps repeating the above info.

I ask him for his name. He tells me it's Srikant Verma. I ask him about a different name on the OLX chat. He doesn't have an answer and continues to prompt me to click pay.

I realize that there's not much info I can get anymore and decide to confront him. Ask him how many such scams he does successfully in a day. Caller disconnects. Not surprised there.

Take a look at the UPI request:

Name: MOBIKWIK
UPI ID: mobikwikaddmoney@hdfcbank

Using common names to trick people into believing that the payment is going to be processed via Mobikwik.

And now some call to actions. Hey @HDFCBank_Cares. This UPI ID seems to have been issued by you. I can share the full transaction ID. Find this scammer and block their account. The phone number used is 9399769353. @UPI_NPCI. They're running scams on OLX.

Hey @OLX_India. I know you can't prevent this completely. But could you please use this information to help track down this scammer and report to law authorities? DM me for more information on the account?

To everyone else, educated your friends and family. Very easy to fall for this unless you know about it already. The chance of being able to sell something for the price we want can overwhelm and cloud our judgement. /end