Explained: All about the UPI-Help feature to raise payment complaints online

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has gone live with ‘UPI-Help’ on the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) UPI for a hassle-free grievance resolution mechanism. The most common uses of UPI are to send and receive money instantly, pay utility bills, among others. While making these transactions, consumers have faced issues at times and there are been several complaints. According to the RBI’s annual report of ombudsman schemes for FY 2019-20, there were almost 44 percent complaints related to fund transfers on UPI-based mobile applications – BHIM, Google Pay, PhonePe and Amazon Pay, among others.

Also read: Complaints on banking services rose 65% in 2019-20: Here are a few lessons for customers

What is the UPI-Help feature on BHIM about?

Let’s say you transfer money to a person or a merchant using your BHIM UPI app. Your bank account gets debited, but the app still shows that the transfer is being processed. In such a situation, you generally reach-out to the helpdesk of the BHIM UPI and your bank to resolve the issue.

Now, UPI-Help will allow BHIM UPI users to use their app to check the status of pending transactions, raise complaints for transactions that have not been processed or money not credited to the beneficiary. In addition, if the user does not take any action when transfer of amount is stuck, the UPI-Help shall also proactively attempt to auto update the final status of the transactions on the app.

Which banks have enabled the UPI-Help for the users?

To start with, NPCI has gone live on the BHIM app for the customers of State Bank of India (SBI), AXIS Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. The customers of Paytm Payments Bank and TJSB Sahakari Bank will also be able to use the UPI-Help soon.

Also read: Have a complaint against bank or NBFC or digital wallet? RBI to soon roll out a unified ombudsman

How should I report a transaction-related complaint?

In the BHIM UPI application, under ‘raise a complaint’ option, you will find your transaction history. You need to choose the transaction for which you wish to raise a complaint. Then, you will find two options on the screen: raise concern and call bank.

In case you face any issue with the transaction, click on ‘raise concern.’ Then mention the issue in the online complaint form and submit it.

Suppose you want to speak with the customer service of the BHIM application to raise the complaint, select the second option, which is ‘Call Bank.’ It will connect you to the customer care of BHIM on the toll-free number: 1800-120-1740. You can also dial the UPI customer care helpline number directly to lodge the complaint.

Also read: Know your rights and protect yourself from your bank’s mis-selling practices

What is ‘Get in Touch’ service in BHIM UPI?

‘Get in Touch’ is a customer care platform that allows consumers to lodge BHIM UPI related complaints.  Any issues relating to login, registration, transaction, cashback, PIN, bank account, etc. can be recorded.

What are the steps to lodge a complaint using the ‘Get in Touch’ service?

In case you have a complaint regarding any of the above-mentioned services, follow the steps to lodge the complaint on the BHIM UPI app.

Step 1: Go to the ‘Get in Touch’ page through the BHIM UPI application or website. Here, you will find three segments – complaint, query and feedback.

Step 2: From the complaint segment, you need to select type of complaint (transaction/ payments/ cash back/ login, etc.) to register.

Step 3: Each complaint has multiple fields to be filled, such as type of issue, your virtual payment address (VPA), date of transaction, email ID, registered mobile number and comment box to briefly explain your issue.

After the filling mandatory fields in the online complaint form, you need to solve the captcha and submit. The response to your complaint will be mailed to your registered email ID by the customer support team of BHIM UPI.