A senior vice president at Unacademy in Bengaluru became the target of a fake UPI money transfer scam. The incident, disclosed by Hardik Pandya on X (formerly Twitter), unfolded when he posted an iPad for sale on OLX and was contacted by an apparent buyer named “Dilip Vikas.”
The conversation shifted to WhatsApp, where the scammer promised immediate payment. They sent screenshots depicting a transaction exceeding the agreed amount by ₹10,000 and requested Pandya to return the excess. However, upon verifying his account, Pandya found only a Re 1 transaction, likely used to verify account details, with the remaining amount never transferred, thus revealing the scam attempt.
Accompanying the screenshot, Pandya tweeted, “UPI scam from this morning. Posted an ad for an iPad on OLX. Scammer gets in touch, takes it to WhatsApp and offers to transfer money instantly. Then does this -”
In a subsequent tweet, he added, “Obviously, it doesn’t take much to know this raised all the alarms from the get-go. But the imitation transaction messages sent manually by him was the funniest part!”
The post quickly gained traction, with numerous users applauding Pandya’s vigilance and recounting similar encounters.
One user mentioned, “OLX is full of such scams right now. There are people pretending to army officers too.”
Another user observed, “Olx and quikr are common grounds for these scammers and they will push you to pull down the ad.”
A third user shared, “Some offer to transfer money instantly and then send a QR code to scan. They claim ‘If you scan this, money will be transferred to you. It is the only way'”
“I think even OLX hires some fake buyers. It is tough to prove but these guys really press you to delete the AD and say they are coming to buy from you without negotiating. They never come and you have to now upload a paid AD on OLX,” another user remarked.
“Always keep 0 balance in your bank account when trying to sell anything on OLX and such platforms. Same happened with me when I was trying to sell my desktop. Only thing was that the scammer got scammed by me for ₹ 1. Red flag: asking you to close the ad before payment,” advised the fifth user.
