Is RBI asking people to pay Rs 7,500 in tax to get Rs 1 lakh payment? Here’s the truth

A fake letter bearing the name of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is misleading people into believing that they must pay a refundable tax to receive a pending payment of Rs 1 lakh. The letter falsely claims that the amount is being held due to a transaction failure and promises to release the money immediately after a payment of Rs 7,500 is made. The Press Information Bureau's (PIB) Fact Check unit has flagged the letter as fake and urged the public not to fall for such scams.

What does the fake letter bearing the RBI’s name claim?

According to the fake letter having the name and the stamp of the RBI and circulating online, the recipient is informed that a payment of Rs 1,00,000 is on hold due to a transaction failure. It then asks the recipient to pay Rs 7,500 as a refundable tax to the RBI, claiming that the payment will be released immediately after the tax is deposited.




As per the PIB Fact Check team’s social media post on X (formerly Twitter), the message reads: “We are drafting this letter to inform you about the payment which was supposed to be Rs 1,00,000 to be credited to your account number 43045016306 by the RBI, which is on hold due to the transaction failure, as it's a big amount on which you have to pay a tax amount of Rs 7,500/- to the RBI. That is a refundable amount. The total amount will be credited (Rs 1,06,800) within 10 minutes.

“The account details to which you have to make a payment are provided to you by our employees. So we kindly inform you to make a tax payment as soon as possible to release your payments.”

RBI has issued similar warnings in the past

The Reserve Bank of India, on several occasions in the past, has cautioned the people not to fall prey to fictitious offers/lottery winnings/remittance of cheap funds in foreign currency from abroad by so-called foreign entities/ individuals or to Indian residents acting as representatives of such entities/individuals.

What should you do if you receive such a fake message?

If you have been deceived by such scams, register your complaints with the local law enforcement agencies.

Here are RBI’s suggestions for public to stay away from such scams

• The RBI does not hold any accounts for individuals.
• Beware of impersonated names of RBI officials
• Nobody from the RBI calls up people about lottery winnings/funds received from abroad
• The RBI does not send any emails intimating award of lottery funds, etc.
• The RBI does not send any SMS or letter or email to communicate fictitious offers of lottery winnings or funds received from abroad.

The only official and genuine website of the Reserve Bank of India is (www.rbi.org.in) and the public may be careful and not get misled by fake websites with similar addresses beginning with ‘Reserve Bank’, ‘RBI’, etc., along with fake logos.