Please suggest regarding account freeze

[rounakr94]

I recently received a payment of ₹500 from a friend (lets call him A) . Recently I heard that there has been some account freezing that happened in his friend circle with whom he runs a online marketplace. It's a bit lengthy and confusing so please read carefully.

My friends friend (B) received ₹ from a person who sold him some products. Now unbeknownst to B the ₹ he received was from a person who had cyber crime report against his name for scamming and as a result his (B's) account was on a total chain freeze along with some other people.

My friend A who receives FB marketplace payments regularly from his friend B closed his account in fear of Cybercrime chain freeze and opened a new account.

My questions are:
1. Since I received a payment of ₹500 from my friend A how likely is it that I might also be caught in the cross fire of the chain freeze?
2. I sometimes send money to my parent's accounts where I am 3rd holder so will this affect their account also?

My account is used for all junk online uses so its only loaded with money when needed and current balance is in 3 digits but my parents accounts have ₹ in them since its the primary savings account for our family.

 

[Aniket]

I recently received a payment of ₹500 from a friend (lets call him A) . Recently I heard that there has been some account freezing that happened in his friend circle with whom he runs a online marketplace. It's a bit lengthy and confusing so please read carefully.

My friends friend (B) received ₹ from a person who sold him some products. Now unbeknownst to B the ₹ he received was from a person who had cyber crime report against his name for scamming and as a result his (B's) account was on a total chain freeze along with some other people.

My friend A who receives FB marketplace payments regularly from his friend B closed his account in fear of Cybercrime chain freeze and opened a new account.

This is totally nonsense even when some court has ruled that don't freeze rather hold the disputed amount. But whole these cyber fraud thing is not working smoothly, gov has just made cyber threat/fraud as national threat without thinking much about its implementation and repercussions and none is willing enough to fix or put proper mechanism so as to prevent inconvenience to innocent A/c holders.

My questions are:
1. Since I received a payment of ₹500 from my friend A how likely is it that I might also be caught in the cross fire of the chain freeze?

Yes, there's risk. Depends upon the mood of cyber cell, power is vested in the way they can ask bank to freeze/hold anyone's (general public) A/c.

2. I sometimes send money to my parent's accounts where I am 3rd holder so will this affect their account also?

Yes, it may.

Firstly identify, did you transferred any amount to your family members A/c after that incident.

My account is used for all junk online uses so its only loaded with money when needed and current balance is in 3 digits but my parents accounts have ₹ in them since its the primary savings account for our family.

There is risk as they freeze A/cs in chain/ layers. Also, it's not that the one against whose compliant is made, somehow sorted out the case and become able to take NOC and sucessful to make his/her account unfreeze, then other A/c acted as layers get automatic relief/thier A/c will get unfreezed. 😐

What I suggest is; if your family member have only one account, acting as primary & secondary both then open a new A/c, since you mantain balance then you don't have to think much about minimum balance requirement, find out the best bank and best branch in your region and open one account there.

Withdraw cash from first A/c and then deposit the same directly or indirectly (it would be better if you deposit indirectly from some trusted individual whose account is not exposed to public make transactions) and also do note that don't withdraw and deposit same amount. Make some adjustments, lil up/down to play safe.

 

[rounakr94]

Yes, it may.

Firstly identify, did you transferred any amount to your family members A/c after that incident.

Yes, I transferred around ₹12000 to that account this week. I received ₹500 from my friend on 2nd February.

My friend's friend received the money (from the scammer) on Nov 2024 and his acc was on total freeze from first week of February.

 

[rounakr94]

Update:
After asking my friend again and again he now says that he didn't receive any money from his friend and sent me a UPI SS (most likely PhonePe) that shows that money was sent from his account to his friends account rather than the opposite.

So in that case all should be good I guess as the txn were debit to the flagged acc rather than credit from the flagged acc?
Also I want to open a separate account for taking in such payments which I will withdraw for cash.
So any particular bank that offers services like 0 balance with option of ATM.