Some one I know sent this message to be shared with a larger community, it is quite scary.
Please read carefully and act accordingly… Better to be Safe than Sorry Rambo Linking Mobile Phone Numbers with your Aadhaar ""Recently government has given payment banking licences to the mobile companies. Now what the mobile companies are doing is once you link your mobile with your aadhaar without your consent they are opening an account in your name. My personal experience is what I am stating here. Once my vodafone number was linked to my aadhaar and verified, without my consent or knowledge they opened an Mpesa account in my name. Mpesa is the vodafones payment bank, similarly airtels is airtelmoney etc. Now I understood what was going on because of my experience of having worked in a telecom firm previously. I became aware only when I got an sms asking me not to share my mpesa password with anyone. I knew that I had not created any such account then what was this message about. So I went to a vodafone store and raised an SR ie service request. It was my famialiarity with telecom practices that prompted me to state technical terms that I need to register an SR and given the sr number, which made it mandatory for them to issue an SR number. Otherwise the modus operandi would be to send you to someone in customer care and try to settle the issue. When I asked them how they had created an Mpesa account in my name without my consent they didnt have an answer. Their reply was that you didnt need KYC documents for this account and you can transact upto 15000/ .I replied that sending up to 15000 rupees without KYC is a government legal law which everyone is familiar with but for sending money you need to create an account first . To create that account one needs KYC which I have not given you. The only thing I have done is given my thumb impression to link my mobile and aadhaar.You have used this to create an account without any sort of information or consent from me. This is 100% illegal act. So now I am going to give a compaint. By this time all the customers in the store were listening in to this conversation . As it snowballed into an issue they agreed to give a request to get the account cancelled. Then after speaking to someone on the phone I was asked to give a written request to get the account cancelled. I replied that when I have neither asked nor provided kyc for such an account to be started why should I write a request to cancel such an account. When I was adamant about this point they spoke to a higher officer and then agreed to cancel the account. I bring this to everyones notice because most of us are businessmen, many have loans etc and these loan subsidies and other subsidies , need to be aware that whichever is the last account you have linked with your aadhaar that will be the account to which all your subsidies will go. For eg you have a state bank savings account linked to your aadhaar through which you conduct all your major transactions, loan payments, gas subsidies etc etc. So you would have already linked your aadhaar to it and maybe you have not linked any other account after that. But then you got your mobile verified using the aadhaar. Now the problem is the way the aadhaar system functions is that it will look at the very last account that has been linked to the aadhaar. So if the phone company creates an mpesa or similar account without your knowledge your subsidies will not go to your savings but to the last linked mpesa account. THis is something we are not aware of because we have not created any such accounts. Now remember the customer count of these mobile companies. Taking that into account at an all india level , if even rs 100 goes into an account imagine the amount of money which is being generated. Moreover to get it back you need a smart phone which is not something necessarily that everyone has. Further to get the account closed or money transferred elsewhere , you are asked to pay a fine of ts 50. Now this has got nothing to do with the government. The government is very clear that without KYC you cannot open an account. This practice has been implemented solely by the phone companies on their own. I can even show you the screen shot of the statement of closing my account. Please be aware that if and when you get an sms from vodafone or other mobile firms asking you not to share your password , they have created an account in your name without your knowledge or consent. Not only get it cancelled, but remember to register an SR get the SR number and never give a letter requesting to close the account.
