My card number is 4216-***, expiry ** and CVV ***: How Bold Care co-founder’s ‘stunt’ may have broken ‘basic’ rule of RBI ‘Kehta Hai’

Earlier this week, Bold Care co-founder Rahul Krishnan shared his debit card details including expiry and CVV online. He went on to promise that he will also share OTPs for people to make transactions. “my card number is 4216-8701-5010-2349 the expiration date is 12/30 the security code is 207 happy sextember everyone! 🥳🥳,” wrote Krishnan in a post on X, formerly Twitter.He did set a transaction limit of less than Rs 1000.

Little doubt his post went viral. From the posts shared online, people used his the card details to make purchases of up to Rs 1,000 across online platforms: From Grofers to Swiggy, Amazon, Meesho and Zomato. There were also some who reportedly tried their luck at transactions bigger than Rs 1000, but yes didn’t succeed,
‘Santa Claus act’ vs “RBI Kehta Hai”
Rahul Krishnan has not revealed the reason behind his Santa Claus act or should we call it the ‘Bold stunt’. However, as many social media users pointed out in their comments: What appears to be a marketing campaign for Bold Care breached basic credit card security rules: Do not share Passwords, PIN, OTP, CVV, Card details with anyone
Since almost a decade India’s apex bank has been running a campaign “RBI Kehta Hai” which aims to sensitise bank users to NOT share their ATM/credit/debit card PINs, OTP, CVV and UPI-PIN with anyone whatsoever. While ‘RBI Kehta Hai’ is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India to educate the public about its regulations which are aimed at enhancing the quality of customer service in Banks, one of its key message is also to make banking customers aware against financial frauds.
To drill the message Reserve Bank of India has roped in celebrities across industries, including Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, cricketer.
Some users wrote in comments that what Krishnan did is a criminal offence under RBI. While sharing OTP is not a criminal offence, customers lose almost all their right to contest a financial fraud after they have shared the OTP. In a country where financial digital illiteracy is still quite low and OTP/UPI PIN cyber frauds rampant, such ‘Bold stunts’ may not be the right message to send.
Indians lost over Rs 1,750 crore to cybercrime in first 4 months of 2024 – and counting
To give some numbers to how grave the cybercrime problem in India is: Indians lost more than Rs 1,750 crore to cyber criminals in the first four months of 2024 with over 7 lakh 40 thousand cybercrime complaints being registered on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal run by the ministry of home affairs between January to April 2024. According to Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), on an average 7,000 cybercrime complaints were registered per day in May 2024, a jump of 113.7% between 2021-2023 and 60.9% from 2022-2023, and 85%of them were financial online frauds. Those unaware, I4C is a body established by the MHA to provide a framework for law enforcement agencies to deal with cybercrime.