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Festive Scams India: AI and Deepfake Fraud Alert

One in three Indians hit by festive scams. Learn how AI fraud and deepfake shopping scams work, plus simple steps to shop safe and protect your money.

Festive Scam Alert: One in Three Indians Duped by AI and Deepfake Frauds — illustrative featured image
Diwali week, 2024. A 34 year old marketing manager in Pune opens WhatsApp. A video message from her "bank relationship manager" plays. His face is familiar. His voice is familiar. He tells her a festive cashback offer expires in two hours and asks her to confirm her card details on a link. She clicks. Four minutes later, Rs 47,000 leaves her account in three transactions. The video was fake. The face was stitched together with a generative AI tool. The voice was cloned from a customer care call she had made a month earlier. ## One in Three Is Not a Statistic. It Is Your Group Chat. A Business Standard report this festive season put a number on what many of us suspected: roughly one in three Indians have been targeted or duped by some form of festive fraud, and a growing share of those frauds now involve AI and deepfake technology. Read that again. If you have three relatives who shop online during Diwali, Navratri, Onam, or Christmas sales, one of them has already been in a scammer's crosshairs. The old scams were lazy. A prince with a bank account. A lottery you never entered. You could smell them. The new ones are polished. They arrive with your name spelled correctly, your last order number, your delivery address, and a face you recognise. That is the shift. AI fraud has turned a volume game into a precision game, and festive shopping season is the perfect hunting ground because we are all primed to expect offers, discounts, and urgency. ## Why Festive Season Is a Scammer's Favourite Quarter Think about what you do between October and January. You get more SMS than usual. More WhatsApp forwards about deals. More "your order is delayed" messages. More cash-on-delivery calls. Your guard is lower because everything looks like it belongs in a sale season. Scammers know this. They also know that during festive weeks, customer support lines are jammed. If you want to verify a suspicious message, the real bank or the real ecommerce seller is harder to reach. That gap is where they live. ### The three festive fraud types doing the most damage **1. Deepfake video calls from "bank officials" or "company HR"** A face and voice cloned from public videos or a recorded call. Common during salary credit season and festive bonus weeks. **2. Fake delivery and refund messages** "You missed your delivery. Pay Rs 25 to reschedule." The link harvests your UPI PIN or card details. **3. AI generated shopping ads and fake storefronts** Deepfake shopping scams often ride on real brand names. A fake Instagram or Facebook ad offers a 70 percent off "Diwali sale" on a known label. The site takes payment and disappears. ## The Scam Has a Pattern. Learn It Once. Fraudsters rarely invent new tricks. They recycle a script. Here is what almost every festive AI scam shares: - **Urgency.** A deadline measured in minutes, not days. - **Authority.** A bank, a courier, a government scheme, or a celebrity endorsement. - **A small ask first.** A Rs 1 or Rs 25 payment to "verify" before the big theft. - **A channel switch.** They move you from a public platform to WhatsApp or a phone call where no one can see the conversation. - **A familiar face or voice.** This is the new layer. AI fraud adds trust that older scams could not fake. If a message hits three of these five, stop. Do not click. Do not reply. Verify through the official app or the number printed on your card. ## What We Recommend We spend our days hunting genuine deals, so we have a low tolerance for anything that smells like a fake one. Here is what we actually do and what we tell our families. **For payments, stick to UPI apps with built in scam warnings.** Google Pay and PhonePe both flag suspicious recipients, and Paytm has improved its fraud alerts. Never approve a "collect request" you did not initiate. A collect request is a payment out of your account, not into it. **For shopping, buy only from [verified storefronts](/coupon/blog/how-online-offers-are-transforming-indian-shopping-trends-and-tips-for-savvy-buyers).** [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/) India and [Flipkart](https://www.flipkart.com/) have dedicated festive sale pages with seller ratings. If a deal shows up only in an Instagram ad with a link shortener, treat it as a deepfake shopping scam until proven otherwise. **For deliveries, use the official app.** Track orders inside Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, or the courier's own app. Never trust an SMS link, even if it has your order number. **For verification, call back on a number you looked up yourself.** If someone claims to be from HDFC, ICICI, or SBI, hang up and call the number on the back of your card. Do not use the number they gave you. **For family, set up a two minute rule.** Anyone in your household who gets an urgent money request must wait two minutes and call the person directly. Almost every deepfake call collapses under one live question that the cloned voice cannot answer. One more thing. Enable transaction alerts on every account, including the ones you rarely use. The fastest way to limit damage is to know within seconds that money has moved. ## The Part Nobody Says Out Loud Banks will often reimburse you if you report fraud within a short window. They will almost never reimburse you if you authorised the transaction yourself, even under a deepfake's influence. That single fact should change how you behave. The moment you feel rushed, slow down. Speed is the scammer's only real weapon. We are not going to pretend this is easy. AI fraud is getting better every quarter, and deepfake shopping scams will get harder to spot before they get easier. But the fundamentals still work. Verify. Wait. Call back. Use the app. If a deal looks too good, it usually is. If a caller sounds too urgent, they usually are not who they say. And if your cousin forwards you a "limited time Diwali offer" at 11 pm, check with her before you check out. ## FAQ ### Can I really be tricked by a deepfake video call? Yes, and it happens more than people admit. A short clip of your face and voice is enough to build a convincing clone. Treat any unsolicited video call asking for money or details as fake until you verify through a separate channel. ### What should I do immediately if I fall for a festive scam? Call your bank's fraud helpline, freeze the card or UPI, and file a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Portal (cybercrime.gov.in) or dial 1930. Report within 24 hours. Speed matters more than anything else. ### Are AI shopping ads on social media always fake? No, but the risky ones share tells. No verified business badge, a link shortener, prices far below market, and a countdown timer. Buy from the brand's official website or a trusted marketplace instead.

Frequently asked questions

The three festive fraud types doing the most damage **1. Deepfake video calls from "bank officials" or "company HR"** A face and voice cloned from public videos or a recorded call. Common during sala

Yes, and it happens more than people admit. A short clip of your face and voice is enough to build a convincing clone. Treat any unsolicited video call asking for money or details as fake until you verify through a separate channel.

What should I do immediately if I fall for a festive scam?

Call your bank's fraud helpline, freeze the card or UPI, and file a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Portal (cybercrime.gov.in) or dial 1930. Report within 24 hours. Speed matters more than anything else.

Are AI shopping ads on social media always fake?

No, but the risky ones share tells. No verified business badge, a link shortener, prices far below market, and a countdown timer. Buy from the brand's official website or a trusted marketplace instead.

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