Cyber Crime Complaint Online in India: The 1930 Helpline, cybercrime.gov.in and RBI Deadlines

For money lost to online fraud in India, the home ministry's advice is to call the national helpline 1930 or report on cybercrime.gov.in, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. A 1930 call is followed by a complaint on the portal, and crimes with no money involved go straight to the portal.

What a 1930 call does

A 1930 call is answered by state police, who open a ticket on the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System. As the government described it at launch, the ticket goes to the victim's bank and to the bank that received the money; if the money is still there, that bank puts a hold on it, and if it has moved, the ticket follows it to the next account. The caller then gets an SMS with an acknowledgement number and a request to file full details on the portal within 24 hours.

The home ministry says the system has saved more than ₹11,158 crore across 32.80 lakh complaints up to 30 June 2026. For 2023-24 to 2025-26 the same release gives two figures: more than ₹9,079 crore was marked as lien (frozen in the receiving account) and about ₹206 crore was refunded.

Since April 2026 the system has had a money restoration module and a grievance module, under a standard operating procedure issued by the home ministry: the first deals with returning held money to victims, the second with complaints from people whose accounts were frozen.

In one Mumbai case, police traced a ₹72 crore fraud linked to 255 complaints through mule accounts, the bank accounts used to receive victims' money.

RBI's reporting deadlines for bank customers

The Reserve Bank's liability rules count from when the customer reports the fraud to the bank, a separate report from the 1930 ticket.

The Reserve Bank's 2017 rules set zero customer liability where the fraud came from a breach elsewhere and is reported within three working days, and cap it at ₹5,000 to ₹25,000 between four and seven working days, depending on the account. Where the customer shared an OTP or PIN, the 2017 rules leave the loss with the customer until the fraud is reported to the bank.

The June 2026 amendment directions apply to transactions on or after 1 January 2027. They cover credentials obtained from the customer by fraud and payments approved under coercion. For a loss up to ₹50,000 caused by the customer's own negligence, they provide compensation of 85% of the net loss, at most ₹25,000, once per person, where the fraud was reported on the portal or 1930 and to the bank within five calendar days. The same directions give banks 45 days to resolve a domestic complaint.

Which form to use

The portal has three routes:

• Financial fraud: UPI, card, net banking, wallet, investment and job scams.
• Women and children related crime: sexual content involving a child, rape or gang-rape videos. This one can be filed anonymously, but an anonymous complaint can't be tracked; ‘Register & Track’ gives updates.
• Other cyber crime: hacked email or social accounts, impersonation, cyberstalking, ransomware.

Chakshu, on the Department of Telecommunications' Sanchar Saathi portal, is a separate tool, for suspected fraud calls, SMS and WhatsApp messages where nothing was lost.

What the complaint form asks for

You log in with your name and an Indian mobile number, and the OTP expires after 30 minutes. The portal's own checklist lists:

• the date and time of the incident;
• a description of at least 200 characters, without the symbols # $ @ ^ * ` ~ | !;
• a scan or photo of one national ID (Aadhaar, PAN, voter ID, driving licence or passport) as a jpeg or png of 5 MB or less;
• for money lost: the bank, wallet or merchant, the 12-digit transaction ID or UTR, and the date and amount of each transaction;
• evidence files of up to 10 MB each.

The UTR (Unique Transaction Reference) is the number a bank or UPI app shows in a transaction's details. The portal's FAQ lists the kinds of evidence it accepts, from bank statements and transfer receipts to chat transcripts, web addresses and screenshots of the suspect's number, and says each uploaded file gets a hash value that shows it hasn't been altered. Details about the suspect (number, email, account, UPI ID) go in optional fields.

Tracking it

A filed complaint gets a reference number by SMS and email, and ‘check status’ after logging in shows where it stands. A portal complaint is not yet an FIR, the First Information Report that opens a police investigation. Under the portal's FAQ, an ‘other cyber crime’ complaint can be withdrawn until it's converted into an FIR, and a complaint about women or children can't be withdrawn.