How do you avoid scams when buying or selling online in India?

A common trick against sellers turns a payment the wrong way round. A ‘buyer’ sends a QR code or a UPI collect request and says that scanning it, or entering your UPI PIN, will credit your account. It does the opposite: approving a payment with your PIN sends money out. The Reserve Bank of India’s guidance is that receiving money does not require scanning a QR code or entering a PIN.

Fake proof is the other half. A payment screenshot, a forwarded SMS or a ‘payment pending’ message can all be made up. Before an item leaves your hands, open your own banking or UPI app and check that the money has arrived. Treat a claimed overpayment, followed by a request to send back the difference, as a warning sign.

Buyers, in turn, are asked to pay before seeing anything: a ‘token amount’ to hold the item, a booking fee, or a delivery charge for a courier. The story behind the request can be convincing, such as a seller who has just been transferred to another city, a caller claiming to be an army officer on a posting, or an item supposedly already handed to a courier. The result is the same: money sent to a stranger for an item you have not inspected.

A price far below similar listings is a common hook. If a deal only works when you pay now, sight unseen, walk away; a genuine seller can wait until you have seen the item.

A one-time password confirms an action on your account, so anyone asking for yours is asking to act as you. Do not share an OTP, UPI PIN, card number, CVV or banking password with anyone, including someone who says they are from a bank, a payment app or a marketplace. The RBI’s advice is to keep these private even from people claiming to be bank officials.

Do not install a screen-sharing or remote-access app because a stranger asks, and do not sign in through a link someone sends you to ‘receive payment’ or ‘verify’ a listing. The RBI describes remote-access fraud as luring people into downloading an app on their phone or computer, and Meta warns that a link asking you to log in with personal information is a red flag.

Meet somewhere busy and well lit, in daylight where you can, and take someone with you for a high-value item. Inspect and test the item before any money moves, and pay only once it is in your hands. For a phone, make sure the seller has removed their account locks; for a vehicle, check the papers before paying.

Keep the conversation in the platform’s chat, where a record exists if something goes wrong. Flipns does not process item payments, hold money in escrow or arrange delivery, so anyone who says Flipns is holding your money or sending a courier is not telling the truth.

Act quickly. Call the national cybercrime helpline 1930 to report financial fraud, and file a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in. Both are part of the Ministry of Home Affairs’ cybercrime reporting system, which links banks and payment services so that reported money can be acted on quickly. Tell your bank or payment app as well.

On Flipns, report the listing, the profile or the conversation from its menu, choose the closest reason, such as a scam, and describe what happened. Reports go to moderators, and several independent reports against the same target escalate it automatically. You can also block the person straight away, and for anything urgent, open a Safety ticket from Help & support in Settings. Flipns cannot recover a payment it never handled, so report to the police and your bank as well.

Checked on 10 October 2026. Pages change, so check the current version on each site.

• Reserve Bank of India, Consumer Awareness: Cyber Threats and Frauds (28 January 2022): UPI collect requests, QR codes, never sharing a PIN or OTP, and remote-access apps
• Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs: the 1930 helpline and the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal
• National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal: register a financial fraud complaint
• Sanchar Saathi, Department of Telecommunications: if you have already lost money, report at 1930 or cybercrime.gov.in
• Meta, Trust and safety on Facebook Marketplace: overpayment scams, login links, and checking your account rather than a screenshot

• Read the Flipns Safety Centre
• See how verification, ratings and reporting work on Flipns
• Check a phone before you pay for it
• Choose where to sell locally