A complaint filed by delivery workers in Ahmedabad has put a spotlight on a growing form of digital wage fraud, in which frontline employees find their salaries quietly siphoned through payroll-linked apps they say they never knowingly joined.
A Sudden Discovery in an Already Precarious Workforce
When delivery staff at a logistics firm in Ahmedabad compared their latest salary slips this month, the figures didn’t add up. Several couriers, already operating on thin daily-wage margins, noticed their payouts had shrunk sharply. For some, nearly half their income had vanished. Only after comparing notes did they realize the deductions were being processed as repayments for loans they insist they never took.
According to their formal complaint, the workers later learned that more than ₹8 lakh in collective wages had been rerouted through a payroll-linked application disguised as a small-loan service. They allege the company managing their deliveries had enrolled them on the platform without clear explanation or consent. The app, they said, began issuing loans on their behalf followed by automatic “repayment” deductions that appeared on salary statements with minimal detail.
How a Payroll Tool Became a Channel for Unauthorized Loans
One of the couriers said he first saw a small deduction labelled as a loan recovery, assuming it was a clerical error. Within weeks, the amount tripled. Others reported similar patterns: a loan they had never applied for appeared in the app’s records, followed by a repayment schedule they say they never agreed to.
The mechanism was simple but effective. Because the app was linked directly to payroll, loans were disbursed automatically and recovered through monthly salary adjustments. For workers with limited financial literacy—and, in some cases, little experience navigating digital platforms the system’s opacity made it difficult to detect irregularities early.
A Vulnerable Segment in a Rapidly Digitizing Economy
The Ahmedabad case has drawn attention from labour researchers who argue that frontline delivery workers remain uniquely exposed to such schemes. Many operate under short-term or informal contracts, leaving them with little leverage to challenge unfamiliar pay structures. Low financial literacy, particularly among workers new to digital banking and app-based employment, compounds the vulnerability.
Advocates also point to a broader pattern: as payroll and lending tools become more deeply integrated, the line between salary management and credit products is blurring. For low-income workers, this can mean being ushered into financial agreements without fully understanding the terms—or, as in this case, without realizing they have been enrolled at all.
Some observers warn that companies increasingly rely on third-party digital platforms without fully auditing their practices. When such systems malfunction or are misused, workers are left facing deductions they cannot contest without external intervention.
Investigators Step In as Workers Seek Accountability
The Ahmedabad cyber-crime cell has opened an inquiry, examining the internal processes of the logistics company and tracing how funds moved through the payroll-linked app. Investigators are expected to scrutinize authorization logs, onboarding procedures and the chain of permissions that allowed loans to be issued in workers’ names.
Authorities have advised employees to regularly review salary slips, avoid interacting with unfamiliar loan-linked apps and report any unexplained deductions immediately. But for the workers who have already lost substantial portions of their income, the focus now is on recovery—and on establishing whether the employer, the app provider or both facilitated the unauthorized transactions.
