Youth uses QR code trickery to divert payments, arrested

C Vallarasu of Kallukuttai, who studied up to Class 10, was a business development executive of PhonePe. His job was to canvas at least five shopkeepers on OMR to use PhonePe to receive payments. 

Desperate to meet the target, Vallarasu used the phone numbers of his friends and relatives to generate OTP for new QR codes and linked them with his friend Srinivasan’s bank account. By the time he quit the job in March, he had at least 500 unused QR code stickers with him. That is when he came up with the idea to put them to good use. 

“Knowing the shops on OMR that use PhonePe, he went there at night and pasted unused QR code stickers over the existing ones at the shop entrances. As most are tea shops that accept digital payments for even Rs 10, the owners might not check the SMS for each transaction, which worked in Vallarasu’s favour,” said an official. He would remove the stickers after three days so that shopkeepers would not easily realise the discrepancies. 

Police said his friend Srinivasan did not have any inkling of the fraud. Vallarasu told him the deposits were made to his bank account by mistake and asked him to transfer the money. 

It came to light after Vallarasu and his friend S Robert (32) of Adyar were secured during a vehicle check by sub-inspector S Suresh and team at Mehta Road-Pandian Road junction on Sunday. The police grew suspicious after finding them with nine QR code stickers. 

The duo admitted to have pasted the stickers at two shops in Thoraipakkam and Kandanchavadi, but the police suspect they might have targeted at least 10 shops. “The shop owners were not aware of the fraud till we informed them. If they were not caught, it would have been difficult to trace them,” said SI Suresh. The two were remanded in judicial custody on Sunday.