Shopkeeper Robbed By Showing Fake UPI Payment Messages By Engineering Student: Never Do This

UPI transactions increased by double digits during the lockdown months as the virus spread and customers began to prefer digital payments.

And thus march saw a significant increase in UPI volumes, with total transactions exceeding $5 trillion, up 18% from February. Since then almost we have seen the rise but we have also seen fraud cases regarding UPI Payments.

One such case happened recently with T A Suresh, a jeweller from Raja Market near Chickpet. According to police, an engineering student forged UPI payments to defraud multiple merchants in Bengaluru and adjacent areas.

Prashanth, a Kanakapura resident, was caught by West CEN Crime police after T A Suresh, a jeweller from Raja Market near Chickpet, filed a complaint.

How This Student Faked UPI Payments To Dupe, Several Shopkeepers?

This is a story of a jeweller from Raja Market, near Chickpet who filed the complained.

T A Suresh informed the police that on August 14, a young man paid Rs 1.06 lakh for a silver Diya, plate, and tumbler from his business. The customer offered to pay through UPI (Unified Payments Interface). But after a few minutes, the customer informed Suresh that his UPI scanner was not working, but offered a solution. 

Suresh’s phone number was taken, and he displayed two messages on his PhonePe account.

The first message read “received 56,000” and another “received 50,000”. 

After seeing the same Suresh agreed and thought it to be normal. After the payment, the customer took the goods and left the store.

Suresh examined his bank account the next day and saw that the funds had not been credited. He left a message on the customer’s PhonePe number but received no reply. On August 17, he filed a police report after realising he had been duped.

How Did Suresh Faked Payments?

After reviewing the store’s CCTV footage, West CEN Crime police zeroed up on Prashanth. The communications on Suresh’s PhonePe account, according to police, were actually text messages typed by Prashanth himself.

Prashanth had defrauded a gold jeweller in Ramamurthy Nagar in the same manner, according to the investigation. 

They also discovered a camera he bought from a business in Vijayanagar, but it’s unclear whether he paid for it or not

He was arrested and the police took 10 grammes of gold jewellery, 1.5 kg of silver, and a camera from him. 

According to a police official, Prashanth started with minor UPI payments in his hometown. And gradually after every transaction, the success encouraged him to start faking huge payments as well.