Thursday, March 28

Whatsapp Will Provide 24/7 Customer Support on Its Payment Services in India

WhatsApp which has over 200 million users in India is working on to set up a 24-hour customer support for its payments services that are rolled out in India in the coming weeks.

The leading chat app will provide support through e-mails as well as a toll-free number.

“We will provide 24-hour customer support in English as well as three Indian languages- Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati. Payments users can also contact the support team via e-mail and a toll-free number (when the service is rolled out in India),” WhatsApp spokesperson said.

While WhatsApp is yet to announce the official date of launch of its UPI-based payments service, industry watchers expect an announcement to come in the next few weeks.

Almost one million people are “testing” WhatsApp’s payments service in India, which is the largest base for the Facebook-owned company that has over 1.5 billion users globally. WhatsApp payment service, which rivals the likes of Paytm, has been in beta testing in India over the last few months.

The Facebook-owned company is also updating its terms of service and privacy policy for users to “reflect the addition of payment interoperability features” ahead of the full-fledged launch of the service.

The spokesperson said WhatsApp has worked closely with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), bank partners, and the Indian government on the details of how its service works.

Under the updated terms, WhatsApp states that it will not provide refunds or facilitate chargebacks as once a user submits a payment, it is final.

“WhatsApp is not liable for unauthorised transactions. We assume no responsibility for the underlying transaction of funds, or the actions or identity of any transfer recipient or sender,” it adds.

The spokesperson explained that while users can connect with WhatsApp for queries related to the payments offering, they would have to reach out to their banks for any dispute resolution.