Has anyone faced a situation where a UPI payment was successful, but the merchant never received it?
I made a payment of ₹22,340 on the Income Tax portal through the PayU payment gateway. PayU generated a QR code, which I scanned using CRED. The payment was successfully debited from my HDFC Bank account, and I received a valid UTR.
However, the PayU page was still waiting for confirmation. The QR code had a countdown timer, and before PayU acknowledged the payment, the timer expired. It then asked me to generate a new QR code. When I exited the page, the Income Tax portal automatically cancelled the challan with a “Payment Failed” status.
To complete my tax payment, I generated a fresh challan and paid it successfully.
The original payment, however, is still unresolved.
Here’s what I’ve found so far:
My HDFC account was debited by ₹22,340.
The beneficiary UPI ID was cbdttin@hdfcbank.
NPCI considers the UPI transaction successful, so a fresh UPI dispute cannot be raised.
PayU says “Transaction not found” when I search using the UTR.
CRED initially shared an NPCI update stating the amount had been refunded, but later clarified that the update was incorrect.
HDFC Bank’s Principal Nodal Officer acknowledged my complaint and promised a response within 2 working days, but I have still not received any substantive response.
Since both my account and the beneficiary UPI ID are with HDFC Bank, I would expect the bank to be able to trace where the funds ultimately settled.
Has anyone experienced something similar with PayU, the Income Tax portal, or UPI reconciliation? How was it resolved, and which party ultimately helped recover the funds?
Any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated.