PayTM is misbehaving

[patkim]

For last few days I am noticing lasty defect in PayTM app.
Every time I make a UPI payment, at random SMS goes from my PayTM app to any bank at random.

The message is meant for linking my UPI id with my bank account. Now it has gone even to YesBank as well as HDFC where I do not have any account. and I have also received an SMS from HDFC stating that UPI has been activated.
Initially I thought someone has hacked my phone, but after I contacted Paytm payments bank customer care they informed me that this is happening right now and I can ignore the SMS.

I have written to the CEO of Paytm but they have not responded at all.
And since today all my UPI payments are flatly failing.
I am planning to switch to Phone Pay now.
I tried updating PayTM to the latest version but the defect remains.

 

[Desmond]

A CEO is unlikely to give you the time of day. You might have better results if you pester their customer care.

As for the SMS issue, perhaps you could remove the SMS permissions from the app. It could be a bug in the app but by removing permissions you could perhaps at least prevent any unauthorized SMSs from being sent.

 

[patkim]

Thanks for your response.

Main intention was to get this post indexed by search engines to that if others have same issue they can land at this page. Good to see that the site ranking seems to have improved.
Wrong SMS going from my phone to HDFC bank is one thing but in response to that HDFC bank confirming UPI linkage when I do not have any account over there is a serious defect!
Anyway I have switched to PhonePe.

 

[Desmond]

For UPI, these banks are just providers of the service. It's not necessary that the banks will be the same as the bank where your account is.

This is mostly a flaw in UPI than in PayTM since even PhonePe does this. For example you could have an account in Axis, but your UPI id could be registered via Yes Bank (@ybl). Though IMO it's a good idea to have multiple UPI ids from various banks so that if one bank's network goes down for whatever reason, you can retry your payment via another bank's id.

 

[patkim]

My UPI provider is Yes Bank (When I was on PayTM) not HDFC and my saving account is in some other bank. So HDFC should not have come into the picture in the first place.
Anyway PhonePe is not misbehaving like PayTM!

 

[Desmond]

I see. Perhaps Paytm just forces customers to activate UPI ids for all supported banks? I use PhonePe as well and not Paytm so I have never been subjected to this issue ¯\(ツ)/¯.