Amid Rising Complaints Over PayTm Refunds, Company Says 'Blame The Banks, Not Us'

Little did Ankit G, a techie, know that even a digital wallet would fail to fetch him a dinner at a time when ATMs were running dry due to demonetization.

A few weeks ago, Ankit, 26, tried to buy a meal online using his digital wallet, Paytm. While an amount of Rs 650 was deducted from his bank account and Paytm wallet, the order wasn't placed successfully. The page showed some technical error leading to a failed transaction. While Ankit immediately got a text notification from the bank stating that the amount has been added to his Paytm wallet, the wallet showed zero balance.

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"I tried a lot to get back the money, but in vain. While my bank statement showed the money was added to my Paytm wallet, I didn't receive any acknowledgement from Paytm's side," said Ankit, who then wrote to Paytm detailing the failed transaction. However, it's been over a month now, but neither has Ankit received a reply nor the money.

"Not all banks operate Unified Payment Interface (UPI) that allows instant money transfer from one bank account to merchants, both online and offline. Only some of them like the SBI provide it. Soon after SBI launched its UPI-SBI Buddy, it disabled 'transfer money to Paytm' option from net banking. All banks should come up with their individual UPIs which should be more secured and trustworthy. Also, not many users are aware of bank UPIs and continue losing money over online transactions. Efforts should be made to create awareness about the existing UPIs," added Ankit.

ALSO READ: Paytm Gets RBI's Approval To Become A Payment Bank, You Can Now Deposit Your Money Here

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Akriti (name changed), a 24-year-old media professional, too had a similar experience. Akriti who wanted to recharge her phone using Paytm, ended up losing Rs 500 in the process. While the amount was deducted from her bank account, her phone wasn't recharged. "In such cases, the amount is usually reverted to the digital wallet. But I did not get back a single penny. I have been writing to Paytm, but they haven't responded," she said.

Not everyone though is waiting for Paytm to respond. Rakesh, a senior techie, is planning to knock on the doors of a consumer court for a refund. "On December 3, I tried to place an order worth Rs 300 through my Paytm wallet. An OTP was raised and the money was deducted from my account. However, my order wasn't placed. The moment I pressed the 'submit' button on my HDFC bank online secure page, it threw up an error stating the page cannot be found. What's worse is that Paytm didn't even have any proof of the transaction. The order number or the transaction ID hadn't been recorded on my Paytm profile. I have sent several emails to Paytm, but in vain. As proof I just have my bank statement reflecting that the amount was deducted towards Paytm," said Rakesh (name changed).

ALSO READ: CBI Files FIR Against 7 People For Duping Paytm Of Rs 3.21 Lakh

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Rakesh, in fact, found that many of his friends too faced similar issues. "A recent study by Qualcomm clearly indicated how unsafe Indian websites are for online transactions. It cannot be the fault of a website alone when it starts affecting so many users. There is definitely a hacker intervention amid the online transaction. Every detail of the user is being tracked, including the One Time Password (OTP) that pops up on our phone. There's a set of codes running at the hacker's end, revealing sensitive data in seconds, and the money is lost," said the techie.