UPI Scammer Accidentally Ends Up Giving Me 💸

Sorry for the clickbait, I only made ₹5(¢6). This is the story of how someone tried to scam me on phone for ₹20,000, unsucessfully. 🤫

🚨 Stay safe from UPI Scammers! 🚨
🚨 Don’t Scan QR Codes with an expectation to receive any payment! 🚨

I posted an ad about my laptop earlier today around the Web. I got a message a while back that a person is interested. He calls me and insists upon paying by UPI (I gave an option for cash as well).

This was already odd because there were 0 questions about the laptop or any attempt to negotiate. Not even wanting to know about shipping, see the product in person! This was obviously a setup for a scam! ⚠️

However, he says, he needs to send me a ₹5 QR Code first which I need to scan (and pay on the app) in order to be paid. He reassured me that the QR is for receiving ₹5 and not sending! “sir aapke 5 rupay lekar mein kya kar lunga” Asked me to check my account balance to be sure. I did.

I scanned the ₹5 QR code image I received on whatsapp and made the payment. I checked my balance again and, much to my surprise, ₹5 had been added to my account!

⚠️ This is a scammer’s hook ⚠️ The scammer has you slightly confused and also proven wrong. I was expecting to lose ₹5 anyway.

He then sent me another QR for ₹20,000 and asks me to do the same for this. I asked him there’s no rush to pay and he should instead look at the laptop first. To this, he made a few excuses (I’m doing this for my boss, we’re busy right now, I’m sending my house help, etc). After a while he hangs up.

So, it turns out I came out of this conversation with ₹5 of profit! A thoughtful donation from our scammer bhai!

Unfolding the trick,

I checked my account transactions to see what had just happened. When I paid him ₹5, he instantly paid me back ₹10 so that it looked like the QR code was for receiving payment instead of sending money!

QR Codes

These are the two QR Codes that I received on WhatsApp,

Text of QR Code 1

upi://pay?pa=armyaccountcheck@myicici&pn=MANJU%20DEVI&mc=0000&cu=INR&am=5.00&tn=Pay%20to%20account%20receive%20credit%20success

Text of QR Code 2

upi://pay?pa=armyaccountcheck@myicici&pn=MANJU%20DEVI&mc=0000&cu=INR&am=20000.00&tn=pet%20your%20account%20receive%20credits%20

What Now?

The scammer has now seems to have deleted both the QR code images he sent on WhatsApp. I reported the profile on OLX and, to their credit, they promptly took the profile down. Mr Scammer has his WhatsApp Profile Name set to Vijay. He also changed his picture to this one, is this supposed to humanize him?