Mumbai: Paytm founder Vijay Sekhar Sharma on Tuesday revealed that Paytm has discovered an over of Rs 10cr fraud in the name of cashback. Conducting the probe, Paytm found that large percentage of cashbacks earned by small merchants, and de-listed hundreds of sellers apart from sacking many employees.
As per Vijay, “After Diwali, what my team saw was that there were some small sellers who were getting large percentage of the cashbacks and I we as a team asked our auditors to do a deeper audit.”
Vijay also said that the company, which reportedly engaged consultancy firm EY to conduct the audit, found out that some sellers were conspiring with junior employees to earn the cashbacks.
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The overall size of the fraud is in "double digits", which is "Rs 10cr for sure", and actions against the wrongdoers are being taken. These include de-listing "hundreds" of sellers to ensure there are only brand sellers on the platform and not the "mom-and-pop shops", he said adding that “tens" of employees have also been sacked.
As per reports some employees of the Alibaba-backed company allegedly worked with third-party vendors and created fake orders to siphon off cashback offers.
“Paytm is actually net concluding positive, net of cashback, marketing promotions operating costs.” Said the founder of Paytm.