How to retrieve money if you transferred money to a wrong UPI ID from PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm?

Although the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, applications have emerged as one of the most preferred payment modes in the country, there can be times when consumers might enter the wrong information or enter the wrong phone number and transfer the money to the wrong UPI id. For such cases, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued specific guidelines where one can retrieve money from unintentional transactions through digital services. 
Transactions through UPI saw an 88 per cent hike in volume at 19.65 billion and over 71 per cent increase in value at Rs 32.5 lakh crore in Q3 of 2022 as compared to Q3 2021. UPI Person-to-Merchant (P2M) and Person-to-Person (P2P) emerged as the most chosen payment method among consumers, accounting for 42 per cent of total transaction volume, said Worldline India’s ‘India Digital Payments Report’ for Q3 2022 on December 5.

Here are the steps to retrieve money after unwanted transactions:

1.    As per RBI guidelines, the affected person should first file a complaint with the payment system used.

So, if the person has used UPI platforms like Google Pay, PhonePe or Paytm, and has transferred money to the wrong entity, he or she should first report the incident to the customer service of applications like Paytm, Google Pay, and PhonePe, and request a refund.

2.    The aggrieved person can also file a complaint at the NPCI portal. On visiting the npci.org.in website, complainants can press on the Dispute Redressal Mechanism tab, where an online form is available under the section Compliant.

3.    The complainant has to fill in information such as UPI transaction ID, virtual payment address, amount transferred, date of transaction, email ID, and mobile number.

4.    Besides, the complainant will also be asked to upload the bank statement, which shows the amount deducted from the account for the transaction.

5.    The complainant should vigilantly choose the option ‘Incorrectly transferred to another account’ as the reason for the complaint.

6.    In case the matter remains unresolved, the complainant can escalate the query with the payment service provider (PSP) bank. If the problem is not solved even then, the end-user customer can approach the Banking Ombudsman and / or the Ombudsman for Digital Complaints.

What is RBI's ombudsman for digital transactions?

According to the RBI, ombudsman for digital transactions is a senior official appointed by it to redress customer complaints against System Participants as defined in the Scheme for deficiency in certain services covered under the grounds of complaint specified under Clause 8 of the Scheme.

Under this, complainants can file their queries after the payment system or PSP banks fail to resolve the issue related to payment transactions through UPI, Bharat QR code, and others. They can site grounds such as failure to credit funds to the beneficiaries account or failure to return the amount within a reasonable time.