The nightmare that Google Pay can be .. Making stealing money easier ?
Dear Sundar Pichai, Google pay (g-pay),
You speak of Google pay and cashless transactions for all? Buzz-words like empowering the poorest billion with technology backed cashless transactions feature routinely in your speeches. Taking learning from google pay India to other economies has been high on your agenda, but how about some accountability for people’s hard earned money? Where are the services and safety customers being guaranteed.
A fraud happened with us this morning and sadly nowhere for us to find help? With an ever expanding user base, your customer support is nonexistent in India and it has given a free leeway to hackers, tricksters of all sort. You don’t realise how real Jamtara can be, until it happens to you!!
This morning my father in law (dad), a 70 years old retired scientist, after having a failed google-pay transaction tried to locate a customer support number to speak with someone and get it sorted so that his chemist doesn’t have to wait for his bill.. As anyone in his situation would do, he looked in the app but wasn’t able to find anything for support. So, he did a google search to locate google pay’s customer care number.. He then found this particular number +916295733893 from the first link that came up on google search and called them ... After a call lasting 51 seconds dad was told that he will get a call from another number and that he should answer this (screenshot 1).. He then got a call from +916289548774 (screenshot 2) and this person spoke to dad for a total of 23 minutes ..
After entering a reference code 24989, he suspected something is wrong and he immediately disconnected… only to realise seconds later that he has been conned into transferring ₹24,989 (screenshot 3) instead of getting his failed transaction sorted !!! ALL THIS IN THE NAME OF YOUR CUSTOMER CARE advertised via YOUR Paid ADS.. You won’t be surprised to see that the first four search results for google pay’s customer care are your so called google ads giving some phishy customer care numbers (screenshot 4–8)..
screenshot 6 from — https://gold-man-candy-store.business.site/?_target?m=true
Screenshots 7 & 8 from — https://thefoodstreesantar.business.site/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=referral
Not surprisingly these ads vanished by the evening (check the links posted above) …wonder what is all this buzz about the smart google AI when you can’t even verify the authenticity of these ads. These guys are so fearless that they called back (see the call times in the screenshot 1- 2) and disconnected as I tried confronting them. My Brother in Law then called this guy from his number and a repeat of the same conversation happened only to end in multiple abuses from the other side saying kar lo jo karna hai ( do whatever you want) .. Later my husband called from his number (recording attached here ).. The original websites and ads kept disappearing and new ones appeared with the same numbers on other websites .. all within 15–20 mins… My husband spoke to atleast three different so called Customer care executives.
Having fanatically tried all possible avenues to reach your customer care this afternoon.. I am finally resorting to social media to report this and raise some questions … You think it is ethical to NOT have a proper customer care number/chat available and OFFER support ONLY via E-mails? ‘In light of the pandemic’ you say you have discontinued chat and your toll free customer care support but how about those who are digitally not so versed ? It becomes more pressing when there is an increasing push to utilise your cashless-currency amid this pandemic.. When people across the whole spectrum of digital and educational literates, poor and rich are all pressed for using the so called digital currencies and e-wallets.. I am wondering how ethical of you to operate without proper customer care support .. elderly people like my 70 years old father-in-law(who is well educated and trying to make sense of the new norm!), our house help who has only studied till class 4th and can barely read English and many others across the country — how would they find help if they find themselves in situations like this — A Failed transaction? Should you let your misguided ads lead them to hackers, con men and phishers.. I am completely appalled with the nonexistence of any customer support online and how your so called ‘google ads’ end up redirecting gullible people to fake customer care support numbers for failed transactions! Which obviously is your responsibility… Any accountability on your part is highly anticipated!!!
Cyber Cells and consumer forums ? any ideas and help in this regard will be highly appreciated. We have already launched a complaint with the cybercrime.gov.in, froze his account and locked his UPI..
Many Thanks
Dr Darshana Joshi
P.S. As I was trying to tag Sundar Pichai and Google Pay India to this post the following suggestions showed up, which clearly demonstrates the prevalence of these cheaters, fraudsters across the platforms
PMOIndia #banGOOGLEpay #AccountabilityMatters #CustomerSupport