Mobikwik, the Indian digital wallet company has recently reported that they got pickpocketed Rs 19 crore and they are clueless. They have filed a FIR and investigation is still in progress. This, in turn, raises the question, how safe these digital wallets are?
The incident happened during the past month or so and when Mobikwik found out, they were puzzled. After scanning the records Mobikwik says they could not ascertain where the money had gone. However, the firm detected something unusual with their accounts that hinted a fraud.
Mobikwik Bug
As per reports, the bug allowed users to withdraw large sums of money from their Mobikwik wallet to their bank accounts. To be more specific, the glitch caused money withdrawal not from user’s wallet but from Mobikwik’s corporate account.
Complaint Case
In the FIR filed last week, Mobikwik stated that money which was supposed to be deducted from the wallet of customers’ accounts, got deducted from the firm’s personal account. The complaint was filed by a legal advisor to the company. The case was registered at Sector 53 police station on the same day under sections 420 (fraud) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC. Following which it was referred to cybercrime wing.
Police Investigation
“We received the case today and we are studying the details. The firm has claimed a fraud of Rs 19 crore, however, we will verify the details soon. Any involvement of internal staff or a specific bug cannot be ruled out. It is too early to come to any conclusion. We will take a few days to investigate the matter and will also have to identify when this problem started.” said Anand Yadav, in charge of cyber crime cell, Gurgaon.
Tracing the transactions back to the users won’t be a big problem. However, the police believe the banks should’ve alerted Mobikwik about the high-value transactions as they happened. “Had (the banks) apprised the firm about the unusual transactions, the company would have been saved its funds. We will call the banks and issue them notices to join the investigation soon,” Yadav said.
Over 5,900 people reportedly took advantage of this glitch. However, around 5,800 users were conservative in their approach withdrawing Rs 2-3 crore between them which averages about Rs 4300 per user. These users won’t be facing much trouble, but the remaining 100 users seemed to have withdrawn Rs 16 crore between them. Some users withdrew as much as Rs 2 crores alone. The police are now hunting for these 100 digital deviants, including three users from Kurukshetra, Mumbai and Kolkata who withdrew over Rs 2 crore.
Mobikwik Response
“We detected a fraud by some unidentified persons. We reassure our users that their data and money are safe have not been compromised. The Mobikwik team have taken immediate action by lodging a FIR with the Gurgaon police cyber cell,” a MobiKwik spokesperson said.
It is worth noting that Mobikwik was recently supporting cyber fraud prevention by tweeting a news on the same. This occurred few days prior to the FIR filing, maybe they were internally investigating the fraud at that time.
Flash Back
Mobikwik used to have a good customer base until recently their terms turned out to be more cunning. They recently switched to a new loyalty program, where cash backs are termed as Supercash. The Supercash is not like the regular cashback, it has usage restrictions and expiry. This wasn’t a welcome move to a large customer base, causing many to stop using the wallet service. Even then Mobikwik managed to move forward with their new rules and restrictions. They also partnered with BSNL to created a BSNL wallet service which boasted about exclusive offers.
Final Words
We shouldn’t forget the fact that nowadays these e-Wallets also makes user account disappear randomly along with the money in it. Their one-sided terms and conditions can expire user’s money or account as they wish. So as the saying goes “Karma is a boomerang”. Hope you enjoyed the article, Peace!