GooglePay additional UPI IDs! scary moments! - eNidhi India Travel Blog

GooglePay additional UPI IDs! scary moments!

I had a scary moment with Google Pay.

Google pay or GPay for short is a popular digital payment solution used by crores of Individuals in India, including me. I have one UPI ID provided by a leading bank (Let us call it Bank A) and I use it for Google pay transactions. Money gets debited from my bank account and is paid to QR code/phone number/UPI ID that I provide in the UI. Simple. Great.


Suddenly Google Pay decided to allow each customer to have 4 UPI IDs. This scheme was showing up on the app banner, which I accidentally clicked.

No additional confirmation was taken from me.

  • Suddenly 3 new UPI IDs were created for me, one from Bank B, another from Bank C and bank D (Google pay creates one each for HDFC, SBI, Axis Bank and ICICI)
  • I did not select the bank
  • Banks sent an activation code by SMS, which Google Pay automatically read from the phone. I didn’t enter any OTP or confirmation
  • I get SMS from bank that my account is linked to UPI ID and if I didn’t authorize this I need to visit the branch
  • I have account with some of these banks but I had not provided bank account details. I got a feeling that GPay took my account number from bank using my phone number and linked it to UPI ID

GPay twitter handle replied but only generic reply- one they asked met to refer their website which I had already checked


I want to know if Google has got my account numbers from other banks or not. No one could give a clear answer. Nor the website, nor the twitter support team.


I asked this specific question to Google support team on twitter- have you got my account details from other banks or just created UPI ID without account details? Clearly they have no clue. I was replied with another generic reply that I can contact their support center.

Later I went to my GPay profile, selected bank account and deleted all the 3 additionally added UPI IDs. I do not know if this solves the problem.


Why all these drama of additional UPI IDs?

Google says in case Bank 1 server is down they can use Bank 2 UPI ID to process payment. This way payment failure rate can be reduced. I am not clear how this works..

  • By having UPI ID has Google Pay already linked my accounts in other banks and will deduct money from there?
  • Let us say ICICI bank UPI server is down and I have a UPI ID from SBI- can I use it without linking SBI account number to SBI UPI ID? Or this linking is already done secretly by GPay without me giving my SBI account number?
  • Or the other banks temporarily pay from their pocket and later take money from my Bank 1 account? (like once the ICICI server is up SBI will take money from my ICICI bank account?)
  • What happens if by mistake money gets deducted from Bank 2 and again from Bank 1 account?
  • This is definitely more workload on the bank's server. Hope some new fee won’t be secretly introduced for this at a later stage.

My suggestion to Google Pay

Don’t mess with bank accounts. Do not assume consent. Explain what you are doing, how it works and then proceed once the user gives explicit consent. It will be a few more steps/clicks but I feel safer knowing what is happening, how it works, than a system doing many things on its own without giving me the right information and taking my confirmation.


Adding insult to injury is that most UPI service providers and banks do not provide proper customer service. If money is debited by mistake or something goes wrong, you'll have to deal with chatbots and various automated systems and may never be able to speak to a human. Even if you manage to connect, there is no assurance that the transaction will be rectified immediately. So the best bet is to be extra careful and avoid any scenarios that can possibly cause an issue. Until I get full clarity on how this multiple UPI ID process works, I don’t want to link my bank accounts and invite trouble.


Maybe it is safe. Nothing to worry- just with additional UPI ID from other banks your account is not compromised- But I am not sure. Google Pay help section doesn’t give an assurance. Their support team is also clueless.


Have you experienced this?

18 comments:

  1. Why do you even use Google pay why an additional application that collects your data when you can do same from Amazon or Wattsapp reduces the data sharing and application on mobile

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hmm, convenience I guess. Google already has most of our data anyway. Even Amazon or Whatsapp would eventually do the same

      Delete
  2. The same happens to me too. but i deleted. Though its safe automatically linking of acocunts just bcz of mobile number is tagged which is scary and hell lot of efforts to ratify any mistake from the system. No strong customer service available except chatboats eats up lot of time n effort.. Mental agony. Better suggest google support team to remove this and let peacefully live the customers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Same thing happened with me. I talked to gpay support. Those extra UPI IDs are not linked to your other bank details that you didn't provide to Google. These are just extra UPI handles like oksbi, okaxis. So when the SBI server is down it will re-route the transaction to okaxis. These all are linked to your single bank which you provided to GPay. Rest assured gpay can detect other accounts that you have with these banks, but it cannot on its own, add these with UPI since banks require you to enter your debit card details for safe activation. But I still get your point, this was absolutely a panic attack for me as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This happened to me today. I had been scared uptill now(7hrs).
    I just took the Gpay app because I had to verify a transaction
    While clicking i remember seeing a notification Bubble on home screen icon(Nova launcher), i am guessing the notification was this multiple UPI activation banner. I dint see the banner, gpay directly showed a sending sms screen. I was really panicking by this time. I went and checked my sms, saw the activation sms for 3 banks, a couple for which I don't even have an account. Searched youtube, found how I can check what all upis are activated in gpay. Was still scared and continued googling and finally found this page. Till now I had no clue as to why 3-4 new upis were activated for me. This was extremely stressful and bad experience by gpay. I feel like my consent was not requested for these very important decisions.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It happened to me and above info relieved the tension..
    Thanks guys

    ReplyDelete
  6. Now it seems gpay is forcing people to reactivate account as it happened with me today. I was at petrol pump and my gpay app acting like it is freshly installed. I had no time to think due to rush at pump and have to pay bill. I followed step to reactivate and saw confirmation SMS from multiple banks as mentioned in post i.e. HDFC, AXIS, SBI and ICICI.
    Very bad move by google.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This happened to me today. I found for some reason that my canara bank account with gpay was showing up as inactive and so I activated it. I got three SMSes as a result - from CANBANK, VD-HDFCBK and VM-AXISBK! I do not have any accounts with axis bank or hdfc bank! So I am quite skeptical now, wonder if accounts have been opened in other banks using my mobile number!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Same happened for me today. I just deleted gpay. Enough of this autonomous activity by gpay

    ReplyDelete
  9. Same experience I have ust few minutes before. But the information you provided made me free of tension. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What I find the most disgusting is that Gpay doesn't let you create your own UPI ID like other UPI apps. It just creates your UPI ID out of your email address. This is a serious privacy issue.

    ReplyDelete

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