A viral video is doing the rounds on social media purporting to show a QR code “scam” in action where customers are allegedly asked to pay for parking, but the UPI account does not appear to be associated with a government office.
The video, which has over 18,000 views at the time of writing, showed a customer asking a parking attendant why the name on the code did not match the parking authority, but it was a person named “Vinod Kumar.”
The video, posted by meme account Prof Cheems, captioned: “New Scam Unlocked”, received responses from Razorpay founder Shashank Kumar and Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
What did Shashank Kumar, Vijay Shekhar Sharma say?
Citing a video post on X, Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who is very active on X, said the video demonstrated the usefulness of Paytm’s Soundbox, which loudly announces every transaction at the end of payments.
“Only Paytm Soundbox solves the problem of many offline scams!” wrote on X.
Further, in his own quote on the video, Razorpay founder Shashank Kumar said, “In the next software upgrade, we will disable gallery access unless the seller really needs it.”
Notably, the device in the video was identified as Razorpay.
How did netizens react?
The responses to the three posts on X were full of jokes and memes, but there were also those who praised Shashank Kumar for taking the feedback seriously. Replies to Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s post praised him for making the most of a marketing opportunity.
However, there were a few commenters who pointed out that the Delhi and Mumbai parking authorities hire contractors to collect these charges and these individuals can use their individual QR codes to collect payment. They added that such payments would only be fraudulent if the parking attendant refused to provide a receipt or ticket for the transaction.
“How is it a scam if the attendant gives a receipt? Just another car driver looking for ways to avoid paying even the highly subsidized parking fees,” wrote one.
Another criticized the language used by the driver in the video, adding: “MCD gives a contract for a year or a maximum of 5 years to an individual or organization for some annual fees! Then the contractor collects the money and organizes parking and hires staff (sic).”
One commenter from Mumbai added: “I don’t know about MCD, but in Mumbai it’s the contractor who collects the funds and pays BMC. So this driver/guy shooting the film obviously doesn’t realize that the payments don’t go directly into MCD/BMC accounts, everything is outsourced now.”
