Hacker hand holding a huge magnet attracts money through a cell phone in cyberspace. Cyber crime financial fraud.
3D render illustration.
Bengaluru: Nearly half of urban Indian households have been victims of financial fraud in one form or the other in the last three years, the most common of which have been frauds linked to credit cards and Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a survey by LocalCircles found.
Of the 47% of the over 23,000 respondents who admitted to being victims of financial fraud, 43% said they experienced credit card fraud, while 30% said they were victims of UPI fraud.
“Nearly 1 in 2 surveyed experienced unauthorised charges levied on their credit cards by domestic or international merchants and websites. Four in 10 stated the link or QR code sent to them to accept a payment instead led to funds being debited from their account,” LocalCircles said in the findings of its survey, released on Friday.
The survey report also stated that a majority of people don’t report to the police regarding such frauds, which may mean that the problem runs much deeper.
“It must be noted here that according to feedback received by LocalCircles over the last 3 years, it estimates that 6 in 10 Indians do not report financial frauds to regulators or law enforcement agencies,” it stated.
“In the event when the fraud value is less than Rs 1000, 9 in 10 do not report the same. Similarly, 7 in 10 Indians who use credit cards, report the fraudulent transaction or wrong charge to their bank or dispute it,” the report added.
Among the respondents, 13% said they faced fraudulent transaction on debit cards, 19% encountered it with their bank accounts, and 6% were hit by ATM transactions. Some 30% faced ‘other kind of financial fraud’
As per the Reserve Bank of India’s latest annual report, there was a significant increase in fraud cases within the banking sector in 2023-24 to 36,075 from 13,564 in 2022-23, a rise of 166%. In terms of value, however, the frauds amounted to Rs 13,930 crore in 2023-244, 47% lower year-on-year.