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mehul   19 February 2017

Paytm and bank accounts frozed by cyber cell

I am a normal middle class Indian who is being harassed due to negligence of UP Police Authority and facing after effects of demonetization and on efforts of building cashless economy. I wish to share a story which has happened with my family and causing us deep stress from last one month now. My brother works in a retail Mobile shop (in Laxmi Nagar) and on 14th December 2016, a customer came in and said he wants to buy a mobile (worth of Rupees 17000) but he does not have cash and requested if he can he use PAYTM (E-Wallet) for his purchase (we tried to help this customer because everyone had cash crunch because of demonetization). My brother said ok, and asked him to send money to his personal PAYTM account for this. Later, customer was issued a genuine mobile bill for new phone and transaction was closed. My brother was not really familiar on exact process to transfer the amount from PAYTM to his Bank (but he knew it is very well possible) so he asked for my guidance and I asked him to share his PAYTM credentials instead so that I can quickly do this for him and I took the amount in my bank account to pay him back. Now, on 21st December 2016, my brother finds out his PAYTM account has been blocked and so does my Bank account where I transferred the whole amount. This was really strange and I reached out to my BANK branch in Connaught place and asked them the same , to which they informed that they have received an email from Cyber Cell Agra upon their email they have frozen my account. I tried a lot to inquire details of this like what the case is and who is the police officer looking at this but Bank refused to share any details and asked me to reach out to Cyber Cell Agra whereas I live in Delhi and my bank account is also based in Delhi. After several follow up with Bank , Paytm and Cyber Cell Agra no one provided us in written about what has happened though Paytm agents verbally told us that our A/C are in question because of transaction or payment received by a customer on 14th Dec 2016. So we tried to tie the loose ends and understood that customer might have stolen somebody’s money and he used them to shop at my brother’s office and since my brother accepted them on his personal PAYTM account hence we are in question. Question 1 - How would anyone know if the customer coming at shop is a thief or a normal user?? There are no security feature in apps like PAYTM or any other E-Wallet. I feel your move has landed us in a very difficult situation. Now in between we get to know that a similar incident has happened with another employee working in same company of my brother’s at Laxmi Nagar, Delhi but the authority who has ordered for blocking his bank account is Chandigarh Cyber Cell. Now on 3rd January 2017, call it our luck that same guy once again came to office and asked if he can buy a phone and pay by Paytm. As my brother heard the word Paytm and looked at him closely and realized he is the same guy who came on 14th December and paid 17000 using PAYTM (probably stolen money). My Brother told other employees working in office to keep this guy indulged in conversations (by starting a video recording in mobile) and asked him questions about his transactions on 14th December and in between one guy called Delhi Police. Later after explaining the situation to PCR this so called thief was taken to Shakar Pur Police station. Now I reached out to Cyber Cell Agra that the guy they are looking for in a case , against which they have ordered for freezing of my Bank account has been handed over to Delhi police at Shakar Pur Police station but they gave me cold shoulder by saying thanks and that I can go home now but asked me to share contact number of the police station. Seeing their response I asked the other guy who also has been victim of same thief to call Chandigarh police if they are more active than Agra. To our amaze Chandigarh police acted swiftly and came to Delhi same night and took that thief away with them and started legal proceeding. The other victim of this thief is now happy as his accounts is on verge of getting opened. But for me, even after 1.5 month of this incident, Agra police has not taken a single action from their side yet. The guy from Cyber Cell I spoke with on the day when we got the thief arrested and appreciated my efforts but said he could not fix my problem as case is now referred to another police station. I have tried to contact SHO of Sadar Bazar, Agra police station and explained him whole story once again to which he asked me to come to Agra to submit this incident in written and how all this happened. I visited Agra on 25th Jan to meet him and submitted a video of him accepting that he had transferred the amount to my brother's paytm account and duplicate copy of phone Bill. After the meeting we were assured that our account will be reopened in few days but even after 15 days my bank account and my brothers paytm account is still in blocked status. Police officers keeps saying that he has forwarded his report to the Cyber Cell department but Cyber Cell say they have not received any such report yet. In reality , It’s now 2 months a common man has been struggling to get his accounts opened from one door to another . Note - 1. We were able to figure out that same user has transferred amount via PAYTM to my brother and his colleague working at another store because he gave same mobile number to be printed on Bill.


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 2 Replies


(Guest)

Not only query is too long but it also has ramifications with criminal investigations. Hence, you are advised hereby to approach a competent criminal lawyer. Online open forums cannot and should not advise anyone with criminal matters such as this.

Good luck.

Suneet Gupta (www.vashiadvocates.com)     20 February 2017

A great boost for Demonitization. :-(


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