Mumbai: Foodstall owner loses entire day’s earnings in UPI fraud

Shravan Nadar has been running the Idli Dosa stall near Tilak School in Vile Parle. Representation pic

An unknown individual defrauded a Vile Parle-based food stall owner by placing another sticker over his UPI PhonePe QR code, thus earning money throughout the entire day.

The fraud came to light when the UPI QR code machine stopped responding. Suspecting an issue with the machine, the seller investigated and checked his bank details, only to discover that not a single rupee had been deposited into his account. Upon inspecting the stall, he found that another QR code had been placed over the original one, resulting in his entire day's income, approximately Rs 4,000, being duped.

According to police sources, "49-year-old Shravan Nadar has been running the Idli Dosa stall named Babu Idli, Dosa Centre near Tilak School in Vile Parle East for years. He had placed a UPI PhonePe sticker QR code over the stall and used it to receive payments from customers who paid online."

"As usual, he set up his stall on April 24, and some customers opted for online payments. However, the receiving machine appeared to be offline, preventing him from confirming whether payments were received. Customers would show their payment confirmation on their mobile phones before leaving," said the officer.

"This pattern continued throughout the day, but when he returned home in the evening and checked, he was astonished to find no payment messages on his phone. The following day, he visited the bank to verify, only to discover no record of payments there either," said the officer.

Upon returning to the stall and inspecting the UPI PhonePe QR code scanner, he was shocked to find another QR code placed over his scan code. In his statement to the police, he stated that he was cheated out of approximately R4,000 by an unknown individual, said an officer.

Rs 4,000
Amount the shopkeeper was duped of