OUR RESEARCH

Data Analysis

Statistics from primary survey across India:

We studied the prevalent methods used by scamsters of such frauds and surveyed to understand the awareness of such crimes. The survey covered around 600 respondents across multiple cities, cultures, economic and linguistic backgrounds.
The survey showed a widespread usage of digital payments with ~98% of those surveyed using apps/cards to make payments and engaging in an average of at least one digital transaction daily.
Over a third of survey respondents reported attempts by scamsters to defraud them. Over a quarter of the respondents have received telephone calls from scammers and 14% report receiving links to fake websites/being subject to phishing attacks. However, scammers are evolving into increasingly sophisticated scams involving the use of both social engineering and technology.
The prevalence of such scams has resulted in the erosion of trust with 90% of the survey respondents expressing concern over the safety of such digital payments.
The people in the 18-35 yr age group (young working adults) and those without a university education, report a much higher prevalence of such financial frauds, indicating vulnerability of this segment to scams partly due to their higher levels of trust in technology.
A majority of the respondents remain unaware of how to report such financial crimes.

Sharing is NOT caring for Financial Transactions

As we grow up, money management is a necessary skill that has been added to our list of must-learns. However, in the world where technology has integrated itself in all aspects of life, this skill has become so much more than just budgeting. It gives us immense pride to note that India is at the cutting edge of digital payments with the country contributing to roughly one in two digital payments globally. India’s technology stack handled ~90 billion digital payment transactions in 2022 and this number continues to rise exponentially as more people embrace the convenience of paying each other via their phones. However, this has been met by an increase in the number of schemes to defraud an innocent population. As a part of our Service Project, we studied the modus operandi of such frauds and conducted a survey to understand the level of awareness of such crimes and the protective measures available for the general consumer.

The survey covered around 600 respondents across five different cities, multilingual and socioeconomic backgrounds, indicating widespread usage of digital payments with ~98% of those surveyed using apps/cards to make payments and engaging in at least one digital transaction daily. However over 90% of the survey respondents expressed concern on the safety of such payments and fears of online scams. The people in the 18-35 yr age group (young working adults), without any university education, report a much higher prevalence of such financial frauds. We attribute this to the high smartphone ownership in this segment, but the lack of awareness of the different security measures. Similarly, senior citizens expressed vulnerability and desire to learn more about how to prevent getting frauded. Over a quarter of the respondents have received telephone calls from scamsters and 14% report receiving links to fake websites/being subject to phishing attacks. However, scamsters have moved to more sophisticated scams such as using voice changing softwares and deepfakes to scam people in the name of their near and dear ones. Most of the respondents remain unaware on how to identify and report such financial crimes.

To raise awareness, we have summarised our research into easy-to-understand brochures which we have distributed to over 200 people to improve awareness. Similar sessions were conducted, and material was distributed amongst senior citizens at their request. While it was a truly enriching experience to research and create awareness about financial scams, the sense of fulfilment we achieved after interacting with the staff and senior citizens in our community was unparalleled.