A woman from Mumbai has been reported to have lost Rs 11 lacs while ordering pizza and dry fruits 15 January 2022. In another incident reported from Gurgaon, Haryana, a lady was cheated to the tune of Rs 16 lacs when she tried to seek help from Customer Care of a reputed private bank to resolve an issue with her bank account 16 January 2022.
These are not rare events. Some who have been duped are shy to come out publicly and admit they are dumb enough to have been so easily taken for a ride while many are not even aware their accounts get debited because the fraudsters are smart and, to avoid detection, deduct less conspicuous amounts. Once they get their hands on data like CVV numbers and date of birth, they generally tend to bleed the account holder each time a transaction is conducted.
It is also internationally acknowledged that Indians have been in the fore front of bank account related fraud acts. Many videos on YouTube bear testimony to the crafty Indian, sitting in a cooped up room somewhere out there, merrily siphoning off hard earned money of young and old while posing as an employee of some call center.
The list of such fraudulent activities is never ending. The efficacy of the cheats seems to be constantly improving but the government and especially the internet based banking apparatus have not bothered to improve or bring in stricter checks on their systems.
The Union government, since Demonetization 8 November 2016, has been constantly harping on and encouraging financial ‘digitization’ across the board in this country. It is undoubtedly much easier for a certain section of the populace to order various things online and make payments using their credit cards. On the other hand, digital payment is still a distant dream for most rural Indians.
The funny aspect is that the cheats pry on that chosen ‘certain section’ which seems to have enough money in the accounts. After demonetization, as the next step, the Union government now seems hell bent on getting crypto currencies to become acceptable in India. One may notice that new taxation and financial laws and regulations are being introduced, virtually something every week, that are aimed at facilitating easy and smooth transition to crypto currencies.
The efforts should have been to trace who in India are opting out of the national currency and preferring to invest in the crypto world. Admittedly, with an internet connection, anyone can purchase crypto currencies. Today, with a fairly strong net link and dependable electricity, some small room as physical space and a few computers to spare, an average person can even do crypto mining. This is to accept the fact that such activities may be very difficult to ban but can certainly be monitored. Our government, on the contrary, seems prepared to completely decapitate the Indian rupee for good. It is not difficult to observe the chain of events that have come to pass in the economy of India. The government, both under Manmohan Singh (less brazen) and now Narendra Modi (far more on-your-face brazen) has been undermining India’s inherent financial strengths. While Manmohan dreamt of moving large part of the population away from agriculture and the rural land they occupy to facilitate the super rich to grow, Modi has been sledge hammering financial systems and institutions from the beginning to break the credibility of the INR. Those with economic knowledge explain that the acts of the past two decades will start bearing fruits quite soon. Religious fervor, according to a few, may hold up the rickety supports for some more time but eventually the financial system operating in India could blow out and crumble. Another interesting angle related to encouraging crypto currencies could also be to help political parties in their fund raising efforts. They most probably are currently using expensive technology to attain and maintain anonymity that will never be understood or accessible to the common citizens. It could be for this very reason that no political party in India is asking questions on the need for the government to offer so many facilities to crypto currencies while most nations across the world are still grappling with the issue.
The only way the public at large can stop such mischievous eventualities from taking place, so we are told, is by relying and using more cash for as many deals as possible and limiting digital transactions to the minimum. Are we, Indians, aware and smart to see through this game, could be the poser.