The answer is: Of course, yes!
Regarding safety, I will share with you my own personal experience.
A few days ago, someone accessed my eSewa account and had withdrawn money from my wallet. It happened because the second number added to my eSewa account was provided by Ncell and the sim card was issued to someone else after a few months of deactivation.
I don’t put all the blame on the person who had withdrawn my money.
After speaking to him, he said that he was trying to sign up for an account on eSewa. And he and his friends were celebrating the rewards that showed up after the login.
Without the registration of any cybercrime cases, they returned me the money back.
Now, let’s talk eSewa.
The incident took place on Feb 8, 2021. A few hours later I realized and made a call to eSewa. They asked me to send an email to csd@esewa.com.np. I did.
Doing, that my registration of issue was done and a support ticket was raised. The received ticket number (484876) in my email.
I then called to eSewa regarding the response on my ticket. “We are looking into it, you’ll receive an email regarding it soon.”, they said.
Hours later, I had a little funny conversation regarding this with my brothers we were having dinner. After dining, I called again. The reply was the same.
I worked on a freelancing project for a few hours, watched an episode of Dark (Season 2) on Netflix, and slept early.
Early morning, I woke up, and hours later, I checked my email. There wasn’t anything there yet.
Until then, I didn’t even bother to call the numbers to where the wallet money had transferred. Those were my least concerns.
I called eSewa again, and when I got the exact same reply, “We are looking into it, you’ll receive an email regarding it soon.” That was the time, I didn’t feel good. I was wondering why eSewa isn’t counting the number of times that I’ve made calls for one single issue.
I wrote a post and posted on my blog with the screenshots. Then, I shared it on Reddit and Twitter.
I got an immediate response from Ncell. Here, it is.
A few moments later, I also received a response from eSewa on Twitter and a call from eSewa regarding my issue.
After that, they understood what was going on. All the communications that I had with eSewa, was very supportive. They tracked where the money had reached.
All the accounts to which the balance from my wallet had transferred were suspended.
eSewa also promised that they would never unsuspend the account unless I would request eSewa to unsuspend. In addition to that, eSewa also made me aware of what device has been used to access my account (which you can see yourself on your eSewa account) and also said that it would provide me all the information about the recipient if the criminal charges are pressed.
eSewa provided me a contact number to make a call. And to have the conversation. The contact number was of some indirect recipient of my money.
I talked with him. He sounded polite and very gently admitted about the amount that he already had spent with his friends.
He was running out of balance during the conversation, so I had sent him Rs. 50 from my IME Pay wallet. Just so that he could call me during the back and forth communication (also because I had only Rs. 12 balance on my eSewa).
He sounded like a little brother, struggling a lot in his life to me. I defined him well, why it is called stealing and why the police might get him if he doesn’t return me back. And also about how the police case can impact his life later.
I had also warned him about how immediately he has to pay the full amount because eSewa is all prepared to freeze his bank account and might not even ask my response to do so.
I got the money back.
So, the question now is: Is eSewa safe to use?
Of course, it is. I wasn’t even bothered the whole time because I know how easily digital money can be tracked down and what charges I can press on an individual and a company.
So, there’s nothing that you should be worried about regarding the safety of your account. No one can steal your digital money. In fact, not just eSewa, but, Khalti, IME Pay, bank account payments, all these payments promises you good security from their end.
There’s something that you should always do well from your end. Having the KYC forms filled and keeping your own personal device secure.
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