Man Escapes Scam Of Rs 10,000 After Posting An Ad On Olx; Know How

In the era of digital transactions and instant payments, the use of UPI has become an essential part of daily financial activities. However, this convenience also comes with the risk of falling prey to scams. Over the years, there has been a rise in fraudsters attempting to exploit the trust that people place in UPI transactions by duping them through various means. While people are often seen becoming victims of UPI scams, some have also managed to outsmart the fraudsters and foil plans for scams. One such incident recently took place in Bengaluru, where an individual successfully foiled a UPI scam after recognising the red flags in time.

Named Hardik Pandya, a senior vice president at Unacademy, the individual shared his encounter on X, where he was approached by an interested buyer after he listed an iPad on OLX.

The man, while sharing pictures of the messages exchanged with the scammer, wrote how their conversation moved to WhatsApp. The culprit, posing as ‘Dilip Vikas’, claimed to have transferred the exceeded amount of the agreed deal for Rs 10,000. However, upon checking his account, the man discovered that he received only Re 1, thus proving that the remaining amount was never sent.

While his quick and accurate judgement helped him evade the scam, Pandya, while sharing screenshots of the chat, wrote, “UPI scam from this morning. Posted an ad for an iPad on OLX. Scammer gets in touch, takes it to WhatsApp and offers to transfer money instantly.”

In an additional tweet, he added, “Obviously, it doesn’t take much to know this raised all the alarms from the get go. But the imitation transaction messages sent manually by him was the funniest part!”

In the meantime, the post went instantly viral and grabbed a lot of attention. Users took to the comment section and shared their experiences as well. A user wrote, “OLX is full of such scams right now. There are people pretending to army officers too,” while another commented, “Olx and quikr are common grounds for these scammers, and they will push you to pull down the ad.”

“Dad got into a similar scam recently, someone said that they transferred money by mistake w fake ss and dad reverted.. the person is a reported criminal and the police did nothing about this..stay safe,” another user commented.