Fake payment screenshots: how sellers get robbed on Easypaisa and JazzCash

Quick answer: A screenshot is not money. Before you hand over anything, open your own Easypaisa, JazzCash or bank app and confirm your balance has actually gone up. Do not check the buyer's phone, do not trust an SMS they show you, and do not accept "it will arrive in 24 hours" — Raast transfers land in seconds.

The scam takes about ninety seconds

You have agreed a price. The buyer arrives, looks the item over, and pulls out their phone to pay. A moment later they turn the screen towards you: a confirmation showing your number, the exact amount, a transaction ID, a timestamp. Sometimes an SMS underneath it.

You hand over the phone, the bike keys, the laptop. They leave. The money never arrives.

The screenshot was edited, or it came from one of the receipt-generator apps that exist for every Pakistani wallet. Some are crude. Many are perfect — the right font, the right green, a plausible transaction ID.

This is the most common way sellers lose money in online marketplaces in Pakistan, and it works because of one habit: we look at the buyer's screen instead of our own.

The only check that matters

Open your own app. Look at your own balance.

That is the whole defence, and nothing else comes close. Everything the buyer can show you — a screenshot, an SMS, an email, a call from "the bank" — is under their control. Your own account balance is not.

Three ways to confirm, in order of reliability:

1. Your banking or wallet app. Open it fresh, pull to refresh, check the balance and the transaction list.

2. Your own SMS inbox. Not theirs. If your phone did not receive the alert, you were not paid.

3. Dial *786# and check the balance from the handset itself. The same code opens both Easypaisa and JazzCash on their own networks, no internet needed. Easypaisa users on another network can also dial *2262#. JazzCash's helpline is 4444.

That third option matters more than it looks. It works on any handset, it does not depend on mobile data, and nothing on the buyer's phone can fake it.

If the buyer is getting impatient while you check, that is information. A real buyer who has genuinely just sent money is happy to wait thirty seconds, because they know it will show up.

"It's pending, it'll come in 24 hours"

This is the second half of the same scam, and it is the line that talks sellers out of the check above.

Pakistan runs on Raast, the State Bank of Pakistan's instant payment system, live since January 2021. Raast settles person-to-person transfers in real time and free of charge. Wallet-to-wallet transfers on Easypaisa or JazzCash are also instant.

So when someone tells you the money is "processing", "pending", "held for verification" or "will reflect tomorrow", treat it as a confession. There is no normal transfer in Pakistan that takes a day to arrive while showing a completed confirmation on the sender's screen.

The honest exception is a genuine bank outage, and the honest response is simple: nobody takes the goods until the money lands. Wait, or meet again tomorrow. A real buyer will agree.

Other versions of the same trick

The screenshot is one delivery method. The logic — make the seller believe money moved when it did not — has several others:

• The spoofed SMS. Sender IDs can be faked, and a message shown to you on someone else's phone proves nothing at all. An SMS that appears to come from your wallet provider is not proof of a credit to your account. Your balance is.

• The "account upgrade" call. Someone claiming to be from Easypaisa or JazzCash says your limit is being raised or your account is locked, then walks you through dialling a code or reading out an OTP. What you are actually authorising is a PIN reset or a transfer out of your own account. No real representative will ever do this.

• The reversed transfer. The money genuinely arrives, you hand over the item, and the buyer then disputes or reverses the payment. Be wary of anyone insisting on an unusual payment route instead of a plain instant transfer.

• The overpayment. They "accidentally" send more than the price — with a fake screenshot — and ask you to refund the difference in cash. You hand over real money against fake money.

• The third-party payer. "My cousin is sending it from his account." This muddies who actually paid and gives them a story later. Insist the buyer pays from their own account.

• The fake escrow link. A link to a "secure payment" or "delivery" page you did not choose. Never enter your wallet PIN or bank credentials into a page someone else sent you.

If you are taking cash instead

Cash removes the screenshot problem and adds a different one: counterfeit notes and street robbery.

• Meet inside a bank branch. This is the single best cash-handover location in Pakistan — a note-counting machine, cameras, guards, and no realistic way to run. Many sellers feel awkward asking; do it anyway.

• Failing that, meet in a busy, well-lit public place during daylight, and bring someone with you.

• Count the notes properly. Do not let urgency rush you.

• Never invite a stranger to your home, and never go alone to theirs.

Before you agree to meet at all

Most of the risk can be removed before anyone leaves the house.

• Keep the conversation on the platform. A buyer who immediately pushes you to WhatsApp is removing the record. Real buyers ask about the item; scammers ask to move channels.

• Be suspicious of a buyer who does not negotiate. Someone who instantly agrees to your full asking price without inspecting the item is not interested in the item.

• Refuse advance-payment stories. "I'll send the money now, you courier it today" from someone you have never met is the mail-order version of this scam.

• Never share an OTP. No buyer, courier or bank employee has any legitimate reason to ask for a code sent to your phone.

Our safety tips and scam prevention pages cover the buyer's side of the same ground.

If it has already happened to you

Act the same day — recovery odds fall fast once the money has been cashed out.

1. Call your wallet provider or bank immediately and report the fraud. If the receiving account has not yet been emptied, a freeze is sometimes possible.

2. Report it to the NCCIA. Cybercrime in Pakistan is now handled by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, which took these cases over from the FIA's Cyber Crime Wing. The helpline is 1799. Note that the helpline is for guidance only — the complaint itself must be filed through the NCCIA's online form or in person at your nearest office. Headquarters is at the National Police Foundation Building, 2nd Floor, G-10/4, Islamabad.

3. Keep everything: chat logs, the buyer's profile and phone number, the fake screenshot, and your own transaction history showing no credit.

4. Report the account to us through report abuse so the profile can be removed before it reaches anyone else.

Do not arrange to meet the person again to "sort it out". Let the report do its work.

Frequently asked questions

The one-line version

Do not look at their screen. Look at yours. If your own balance has not changed, you have not been paid — no matter what they are holding up.

Selling something? Post your ad on ListQuikk and keep the conversation on the platform, where the record stays with you.