COVID (Coronavirus) has become a huge threat to the health, economy, and lifestyle of the people. India in particular has taken many steps to curtail the spread of COVID and also ensure smooth functioning of the economy by imposing selective lockdowns, Atmanirbhar campaign, and support initiatives. During this COVID situation, the steps taken to digitize India through the Digital India campaign and RBI Initiatives have played a key role in supporting people to purchase supplies and goods through digital channels.

E-Commerce Giants (Like Amazon, Flipkart, Jiomart, Bigbasket, etc), Food Delivery companies (Like Swiggy, Domino’s, etc) & Insurance companies in the current situation are not providing Cash on Delivery (COD) facility and thus, encouraging to adopt the digital route of payments to promote contactless Delivery. This has led to an increase in the number of digital payments made. 75% of the people in India today are using digital payments & transactions in India. The surprising part of the COVID pandemic is the adoption of digital payments and technology by the older generation aged above 55. It is estimated that about 80% of the older generation between the age group of 55 to 65 are expected to adopt digital payments as the go-to route for payments and transactions in the next 4 to 6 months(1).

The growth in digital payments and transactions in Digital India is a very encouraging sign for the country and its development. This growth in digital payments and transactions has paved avenues for hackers, phishing companies, fraudsters, and cons to cheat people for money through OTP Frauds, Messaging link Frauds, Cheating calls, Online Fraud Transactions for false reasons, etc. This increased usage of digital mediums for payments & transactions has not only increased the ease of transactions but also made the new adopters as well as the existing users more vulnerable to digital fraud by Fraudsters and Conman’s . Also, this growth has enabled conman’s & fraudsters to mask themselves behind phone numbers and fake digital personas to cheat the common public.

As per a report from YouGov & ACI Worldwide published in the month of May-2020, nearly one-third of the consumers (31%) have been a recent victim of a card or digital payment fraud or know someone among their immediate family or friends who has. Among them, 17 percent of those frauds have been within the last month.

Online Frauds have increased substantially during this COVID situation due to an increase in digital payments and transactions. The failure to recognize these fraudsters and conman’s is aiding in more and more increase of digital and online frauds. With a new way of Phishing and Frauds identified often.

Paytm gets around 1,300 complaints every day, said Vikendra Singh, a team-lead in the risk and fraud management division of the company’s Noida office. Extrapolate that to the entire year, and we are talking about close to half a million annual complaints — on Paytm alone, excluding other UPI apps like PhonePe and Google Pay. Vikas Singh, a data scientist at NPCI’s fraud detection team, said that roughly 1 million of the 40 million daily UPI transactions — around 2.5% — fall under “collect”, and that’s where they see most frauds being reported.

So is the fight against these Fraudsters and conman’s only the responsibility of the government bodies like Cyber Crime, Police, etc.? or Can we as individuals and the community play a major role to eliminate these Fraudsters & conman’s?

“CHECK FOR TRUST’’ has adopted an approach of community fight and crowdsourcing to eliminate Digital Fraud by a community fight approach & As PM Modi said promote Atmanirbhar by enabling each individual to safeguard himself against these Fraudsters and Conman’s.

How to use CHECK FOR TRUST AND how it helps

  1. Before making payments online, check for the phone number or email address on https://checkfortrust.trustcheckr.com/
  2. Check if the number or the email address is safe for payments and transaction or has been reported already
  3. If you have undergone a fraud by this phone number or email id report those numbers to help the community

Why Should I report? What do I get from reporting

  1. By reporting, you are helping the other members of your family, friends, relatives and in general the society in large to protect themselves from these Fraudsters.
  2. Build a Crowdsourced Data to fight against Digital Fraud, Phishing, etc.
  3. You help them to be self-sufficient and stay safe within the house. Thus, avoiding COVID contacts in public places

Take the lead, start reporting these fraudsters and conman’s on CHECK FOR TRUST and build an Anti — Fraud crowdsourced community to protect and empower India to grow Digitally and make India a SAFE DIGITAL INDIA.

Let us start reporting now: visit — https://checkfortrust.trustcheckr.com/

References:-

  1. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/indians-rapidly-adopt-digital-payment-routes-amid-covid-19-crisis-study-11589282338592.html
  2. https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/alert-digital-payments-fraud-shoots-up-as-consumers-prefer-upi-cards-amid-coronavirus-lockdown-cases-rise-this-much-in-a-month/1968230/
By : Adhip Ramesh

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