Feeling the late-night hunger pangs and ordering a sinful burger? Thanks to food delivery apps, urban Indians are all too used to such convenience.
And it’s especially been a godsend for foodies like Ramesh who loves exploring the newest food outlets in town – even in the dead of night.
Imagine then, his delight when, during one such Netflix binge session, he comes across an ad for a new food-ordering website by one of the biggest business houses in India.
A website that was offering an ‘Inaugural 90% OFF on everything’ on orders above INR 1000 from his favorite burger joint.
Ramesh immediately logs on to the immaculately designed website and stacks up his cart with enough burgers, fries, and colas to feed an army. The restaurant and checkout pages too had offers that lured him in the first place.
The payment page though, had the following message – “Our payment gateways are not operational yet. Would you want to call the restaurant or scan our QR code to place the order?”
There were a couple of phone numbers and QR codes prominently displayed for him to call/scan and make the payment.
Ramesh wasn’t alarmed (this is a brand new website, he thought) and he didn’t want to call the number too (who calls people at 2 am!) Hence he just scanned the QR code and placed his order.
Little did he know that the website itself was fake, and the QR code he just scanned was linked to the fraudster’s bank accounts!
Long story short, he kept on waiting for the food for the next couple of hours, before he realized how he was duped. The phone numbers on the website were not functional, obviously, and there was no way for him to get the money back.
It was only when he posted on X about his ordeal that he came to know that this was one of the latest ploys adopted by scammers to fleece people.
Moral of the story: Be careful where you are ordering your food from. And never make payments on phone calls or by scanning random QR codes!