Festive Sales: 6 Online Scams Draining Your Wallet

Festive season online shopping brings a surge in QR scams, fake websites, and AI-powered phishing. Here is what to watch for and exactly how to keep your money safe this Diwali and beyond.

Here's what happened: Cyber fraudsters spike activity during Diwali, Dhanteras, and year-end sales, using tampered QR codes and cloned payment pages to steal directly from buyers' accounts.. AI-generated phishing messages now closely replicate order confirmation SMSes from major e-commerce platforms, tricking users into entering card and OTP details on fake sites.. Stolen money moves through chains of mule bank accounts within minutes, making recovery almost impossible unless the victim calls the national cyber helpline 1930 within the first hour..

What you should do: Always verify the payee name on your UPI confirmation screen before approving any QR payment — a mismatched name is a near-certain sign of a tampered code.. Report any suspected fraud immediately by calling 1930 (National Cyber Crime Helpline) or filing at cybercrime.gov.in — the faster you report, the higher the chance your bank can freeze the mule account.. Shop only through official apps downloaded from the Play Store or App Store; never follow payment links received via WhatsApp, SMS, or Telegram, even if the sender name looks familiar..

Enable transaction limits and per-merchant caps inside your UPI app settings — most apps let you set a daily UPI spend ceiling so a single fraudulent transaction cannot clean out your full account balance.

For readers weighing their credit and loan options, our personal loan guide and CIBIL score resources put this update in context.