A couple of days ago, mobile wallet Paytm realised that people were exploiting the app to make money! Yes. Here’s what these tech savvy individuals were doing.

Abhishek Saksena

People were using their credit cards to charge their Paytm wallet and shifting the money to their bank accounts. This way they not only get free loyalty points, which in effect is free cash, but also free credit. This is down to the fact that Paytm doesn’t charge users for transferring money to their bank accounts. So if you transfer, say Rs 15,000 to your Paytm wallet using a credit card, and then shift it to your bank account, you get interest on the savings account and loyalty points/cash on the credit card.

CEO of Paytm Vijay Shekhar Sharma told TOI “We were really shocked and disgusted, when we realised what was happening. And we have blocked the cards of users, who were using this loophole in the system to their advantage”.

BCCL

A day later, Paytm said it will be charging 2% interest to all customers who were using Credit Cards to charge their wallets. The company had to suspend the move almost instantly to keep “users’ convenience in mind”. The company however says it is devising ways to curb the misuse. Until then, the platform is a source of money for all.