Introduction

Scams have become a significant consumer issue in India. This report, produced with the GSMA, adds India to the broader 2025 consumer scams work, drawing on a quota-representative online survey of adults in India.

The purpose is practical: to identify how scams manifest, the harm they cause, where victims report, and what protection people expect from banks, platforms and mobile providers. Occasional ASEAN references are included for context, where the ASEAN benchmark is an equal-weighted average of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam from the same study.

Exposure is broad and the journey is digital

Fifty-three per cent of adults report lifetime exposure to scams, and 42 per cent say the risk is increasing rapidly.

The journey is overwhelmingly digital and multi-surface. Victims most often cite messaging apps at 46 per cent, SMS at 37 per cent, email at 33 per cent, social platforms at 33 per cent and voice at 32 per cent. Search ads account for 19 per cent, QR and payment links 18 per cent, and even dating apps appear at 14 per cent.

Ten per cent believe they were personally targeted by AI-enabled scams. That figure is self-reported and should be treated as such, but it is a strong signal that real-time OTP relays and convincing impersonation are already in play.

The harm is tangible

Sixty-five per cent of victims lost money, with 14 per cent reporting large losses. Beyond the financial outcome, many describe emotional distress at 50 per cent, ongoing anxiety at 43 per cent, and the time and effort it takes to put things right at 40 per cent.

People do act. Most tighten account security and monitor more closely, and a growing share default to calling back on official numbers rather than trusting inbound links or calls.

Reporting is active but fragmented

Only 14 per cent do not report. The rest go to platforms at 46 per cent, banks and e-wallets at 40 per cent, police at 37 per cent, and their mobile or internet provider at 33 per cent.

That breadth is a strength for detection. It is a weakness for resolution. It fragments cases and slows recovery when hand-offs are not joined up.

Trust in outcomes is the gap

This is the finding that gives the report its title. Ratings of good or very good protection are consistently low across banks, platforms, telcos and ISPs, merchants and marketplaces, and government, even as people expect all of them to act.

The problem is not willingness to report. It is confidence that reporting produces a result.

Consumers will support targeted, bounded fixes

The same consumers are willing to support privacy-preserving intervention. Forty-seven per cent approve of purpose-limited mobile network signals used at transaction time to prevent fraud, rising to 84 per cent comfort when sharing occurs only in response to suspicious activity.

Security also moves market share. A clear majority say they would switch to a more secure financial provider that uses authorised, minimal checks.

The path forward

Make prevention visible where scams actually land, across messaging, SMS, email, social, search and QR. Bind numbers and devices, and check for recent SIM-change or device risk at login, payout changes and high-risk payments. Close the loop between reporting and remediation so that the act of reporting visibly produces an outcome.