B2B Wholesale WhatsApp Scam with Fake GST — How to File FIR, Freeze Accounts, and Recover Money

Two college students in Pune — Rohan Gupta and his friend Sneha Iyer — had a straightforward plan. They wanted to purchase energy drinks in bulk from a wholesaler and sell them on campus to supplement their monthly allowance. They found a supplier listing on a popular local business directory and reached out via WhatsApp in late March 2025. Before transferring any money, they asked for proof of business credentials. The supplier produced a GST Registration certificate in the name of one Arvind Balkrishna Naik. They verified it on the government GST portal. It was active. That, understandably, dropped their guard completely.

What followed was a textbook social engineering attack compressed into under three hours. First came an invoice — riddled with typos that neither student noticed in the excitement. Then came manufactured crises: a "driver issue," a "billing hold," and finally an aggressive call from someone claiming to be the "owner," who threatened that all earlier payments were stuck unless a minimum order clearance of ₹5,000 was paid immediately. Rohan took a loan through a fintech app to make that payment. Once the students had no money left and refused to pay ₹300 for "fuel charges," they were blocked. Total loss: ₹12,493, spread across UPI transfers to four different accounts held at Bajaj Finserv Pay, Punjab National Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, all within a single afternoon.

They filed a complaint on the 1930 Cyber Helpline the same evening and reported the transactions on their UPI apps. Days passed. No meaningful response came. A well-meaning general practitioner they approached was unfamiliar with the specific escalation procedures for UPI fraud involving misused GST identities. That's when they came to this office. A targeted approach combining a formal FIR under applicable BNS sections, a written escalation to the cyber cell with documented account freeze requests, and a formal complaint to the RBI Ombudsman moved the matter considerably faster. Two of the four destination accounts were flagged within a fortnight. The matter is still progressing, but the early groundwork made a measurable difference.

You can read about this case in detail at https://sudhirrao.com/b2b-wholesale-whatsapp-scam-fake-gst-fir-freeze-accounts-rec/