Nearly half of Indians experienced financial fraud in last 3 years: Survey

Mumbai: Forty-seven per cent of Indians have experienced one or more financial fraud in the last three years, with UPI and credit card marked out as the most common ones, a survey said on Friday. The survey of 23,000 respondents from 302 districts by Localcircles said over half of the people also experienced unauthorised charges levied on their credit cards by domestic and/or international merchants/websites.

The findings highlight an urgent need to put safeguards and create consumer awareness to prevent fraud, a statement said. Replying to a question on whether the respondent or their family members witnessed a fraud, 43 per cent reported a fraudulent transaction on a credit card, while 36 per cent said they had a fraudulent unified payment interface transaction. Among the credit card frauds, 53 per cent of the respondents spoke about unauthorised charges levied by domestic and domestic merchants and websites.

As per RBI data, Localcircles said, that in FY24, there was a 166 per cent increase in the number of frauds at over 36,000 even though the value is nearly half of the previous fiscal at Rs 13,930 crore. Citing feedback received by it over the last three years, Localcircles said it estimates that 6 in 10 Indians do not report financial fraud to regulators or law enforcement agencies.