Fact Check: Viral post shows fraudulent site and fake offer misusing Phonepe’s name; its a scam

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A viral post on social media claims to offer unlimited cashback by clicking on a link. The creative shared on social media shows a scratchcard and scratching it prompts to share the UPI transaction ID. The link on which users are asked to click is scratch-coupons.xyz. Vishvas News investigated and found the viral post to be fake. It is a scam and users are advised not to click on the link.

Claim

A post shared on social media shows a creative with a scratchcard and prompts its users to click on the link to win the reward.

Another post went viral with a similar claim and a different link. Here’s the post:

Vishvas News also received the post on its Whatsapp Chatbot for fact checking.

Investigation

Vishvas News contacted Phonepe through call. Upon contacting, an official named Anjali asked us to share the creative with them. Upon investigating she said: “Had you clicked on the link and followed the steps to claim the reward, you would have ended up losing money to unscrupulous fraudsters on the lookout to cheat users. Any message asking you to enter your UPI PIN to receive cashback should be ignored. Fraudsters’ are luring users with the promise of winning rewards, through Cashback offers and Scratch cards. Some may send you fake links with offers or you may even see Cashback-related posts on fake social media pages. These links and social media pages are cleverly designed to resemble PhonePe’s official Website and logo to trick you into believing that the offer is genuine. This viral post is fake.“

Since this scam post also went viral earlier, we found a 2020 article on Phonepe’s official website. On the website, the company has warned its users to stay alert from cashback frauds.

In April 2021, Thane Police always tweeted regarding a similar fraud.

Phonepe offers rewards to its users by listing them on the “View All Offers” section on the homepage of the PhonePe app. Customers are never asked to enter their UPI PIN to receive Cashback.