Mobile Wallet is in thing today with demonetization and PayTM has gained the most acceptance from the cash crunch situation. There are other wallet services in the market, but for some reason, PayTM acceptance is much more than any other. Maybe that happened because they had inside information, or they have used our PM for promotion, I don’t know that. But this post is not about how they got so much acceptance. In fact, I am thankful that they got such wide acceptance as it helped me to go on with my life since demonetization without much of hassle. I have been using PayTM to pay for my Uber ride, for small purchases done at grocery or stationary store; I have even used it once in Pune for Tea on a small roadside vendor as well. I had few incidents which made me realise not to depend on PayTM fully, and this post is all about those incidents. I am not defaming PayTM service, but the idea is to tell you all not to depend “only” on PayTM or any Wallet. You need to keep your options available, and PayTM or Mobile Wallet should be one of the options and not the only option to pay.
The idea of showing these small incident is not to discourage anyone from using mobile wallet. I have been using PayTM and other cashless means like online banking and credit card since many years. I adopted these methods of payment due to convenience, rather than any compulsion. I have been using IRCTC to book my railway tickets for years, and happy to pay the convenience charges to the bank as it helps me bypass the hassle of physically going and standing in queue at counter. I have been ordering stuff online since only Indiatimes and Rediff were providing shopping services. This was way before Flipkart or Amazon era. I have lost my money on Rediff when I did not receive my order and there was no one to answer my complaints even after multiple escalations. So, I stopped using Rediff, but never stopped online shopping. I know the risk, but convenience outweighs the risks. I have been careful, but still lost Rs. 500 recently to a site when I ordered some Bangla books that never delivered and the site didn’t respond to my mails. I am telling these just to let you know, that there is similar danger of getting conned online like the real life. We have to be careful in our transactions and places we do these transactions, just like the real world. If we are careful, we can minimize the risk and enjoy the convenience.
I have deviated from the focus of this post, to show that mobile wallet is not the ultimate solution of cashless economy. We should use it, but only as another medium of payment, and should not be completely dependent on that. In fact, this is one of the main lesson of recent demonetisation – Never be dependent on one mode of payment. People who were dependent on cash transactions are the most impacted ones due to ongoing cash crunch. And I think those who were hording their “Black Money” only in cash were also impacted, and must have paid a large portion of it for conversion into new currency. So, as the old saying goes, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Let’s give you three examples were PayTM failed me and I could not have been avail the services if I was totally dependent on PayTM.
First incident: Movie ticket booking via PayTM
We booked movie ticket for Kahani 2, via PayTM website, using our Wallet money, as it offered cashback of Rs 100/- on ticket booking. This was done at 9pm in the night for a show of 11:30 am next day. I opted for m-ticket, which allows me to bypass the queue at ticket window and directly use my mobile to show the barcode or digital ticket to enter. Booking got confirmed, I got my cashback of Rs. 100 as well, but did not get the digital ticket. No email, and even the website link to download the ticket was not working. I tried searching for their customer care, and only ended up with an email or an online way of raising a ticket. No phone number to call, no online chat to reach out. I had no other option but to send the email with all required details. Within 5 minutes, I got a response to my mail. But it was kind of an automated response. The mail appears to be written by someone in person, but I can clearly see that it was an automated reply. The mail was asking me to do the same thing I already did and mentioned in my mail as failure, like check my email, try to download the ticket from order detail page etc. I responded again, and no reply after that. We thought that our tickets are gone, and although we may be able to get the money back, but we have to buy the ticket again as the show was at 11am.
Next day, I called up the theater and they told me to come with the order confirmation details, so that they can issue the ticket. It was a relief, and we started getting ready for the movie. It was only at 11:08am, I got a mail from PayTM with attachment of my m-ticket. This was for a show at 11:30am, just 22 minute prior to the show. So, if I would not have called theatre and got confirmation about the tickets at 11:08am, I would have lost my money and missed the movie as well. PayTM have resolved the issue by sending me ticket in mail, so they would have not refunded my money, and as it was so late for the show time, I would not have been able to use the tickets.
Incident 2: PayTM account suspended due to forgotten password.
Being a lazy person, I always preferred online medium like shopping, ticket booking, food delivery etc. But when cash crunch happened, I started educating people around me to use these online payments. I never supported demonetization and still believe that it is one of the worst decision of recent times. But when people are struggling with cash crunch, I tried to help them by providing various options of living life without cash. PayTM was one of these options to use for payments from our mobile. One of the people learned to use PayTM forgot his password. The interface of password retrieval in PayTM is very complex, and he ended up trying incorrect password and requesting OTP for 5 times. This has resulted into suspension of his PayTM account with 2k amount locked. Again, there is no number to call or chat to reach out. I helped him raise the ticket with PayTM via email, and he got his account unlocked after 3 days. Then, I guided him into the complex process of getting OTP and password reset, to get him into his account. And trust me, it is complex to reset your password in PayTM. While I was searching google for account suspension related issue, I found many people complaining about losing money in their PayTM account due to such suspension.
3rd Incident: Mobile network coverage issue
I was at Food court in Infinity Mall Malad, and wanted to order Dosa for myself. They had PayTM barcode poster saying that they accept cashless payment. I had Jio and Vodafone both sim card in my phone, and none of these networks worked over there. This was not a basement but 3rd floor of the Mall. I had limited cash and could not pay using my PayTM due to network issue. So, I settled for KFC using my credit card. I consider myself a heavily tech dependent person, and because of fluctuating data network of JIO, I have opted for 10GB data plan from Vodafone in my dual sim mobile. So, I can use free JIO data or paid Vodafone, but there are still places in the city of Mumbai, where you don’t get both network. And if your mobile network is down, PayTM or any other wallet will not work.
I will say it again, PayTM is secure, and easy way to pay for smaller things we buy from stores which can not afford card swipe machines. This has given them option of surviving and running their business in this cash crunch situation. And it should also be clear from the above examples, that their customer care service works. It’s not like any Bank where you have 24X7 call centre available for logging your complaint, but even with email based support, issues get resolved. It may take some additional time, but it does get resolved. We have to understand; these mobile wallet companies are mostly new start-ups and not a well-established organisation like Bank. So, their exception handling process is not mature enough like Banks or any large organisation. They are also new in market and will mature with time. We are the first generation of mobile wallet, and our situation is similar to the first generation of Bank users. Good thing is, they have example and guidelines of Banks, so this time, the journey towards maturity will be much faster.
Install PayTM on your mobile, always keep some small amount like 1000 or 2000 into it for small payments. If you are paying higher amount, you should be able to use your debit/credit card. Similarly, during online shopping, you should also be able to use net banking directly. UPI is another great initiative from RBI and once widely accepted, it would give such wallet services a run for their money. But till then, we can’t do ATM, so let’s continue to do PayTM.
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