Heard of digital beggars? When a UPI code turns into a livestream tip jar

No dances, no skits, no aesthetic backdrops—just raw pleas for micro-donations from thousands of viewers. Pleas that bring in instant money, and at times throw up the risk of donors' vulnerability to cyber crime.

This ‘digital beggar’ phenomenon has snowballed, turning "buy me a coffee" tip jars into a full-blown passive income model exploiting UPI's frictionless payments. Govind Lodha, popularly known as Govind Surya, a Madhya Pradesh-based YouTuber who has been creating content for 12 years, is known to be one of the first ones to start this trend in 2025.

Lodha, previously scraping by with odd jobs like delivery and gardening that earned him just ₹300-400 a day, experimented with lifestyle and music content on YouTube without much traction. His breakthrough came from an uncanny resemblance to Indian cricketer Suryakumar Yadav, drawing half a million subscribers to his account govindsurya360, boosted by comments from the cricketer himself on his videos two years back.

Six months ago, during a live stream while riding back home on a two-wheeler, when Lodha ran out of fuel, viewers suggested sharing his QR code, sparking the idea of UPI donations for shoutouts.

"Usually, a younger audience who likes the validation of getting a shoutout from YouTubers like me with half-a-million subscribers, send money through YouTube’s super chat. However, a majority of my audience comes from tier-2, -3 region and low-income groups that can't afford sending super chats, which requires minimum ₹20. For such users, I started using my UPI scanner and giving a shoutout against even ₹1, which no one hesitated to send," Lodha explained.

This shift transformed Lodha's fortunes: "Through UPI donations, I make about ₹800-1,000 per day in live stream, sometime even more, at the comfort of my home. I don’t even have to toil in traffic and rain as I did before in my other jobs.”

He added that YouTube’s official creator funding system in livestream, super chats, have the risk of getting revoked if the sender disputes the payment. “It is not easy for them to get the money once sent on my UPI ID," said Lodha, who aims to fund his dream house through these digital donations.

India’s digital payment system, UPI, which handled a record 21.6 billion transactions worth ₹30 trillion in December 2025, enables ‘digital begging'. This model has spilled beyond livestreams to Instagram, where pages and posts circulate QR codes tied to aspirational "goals"—funding a Defender car for a father, buying the latest iPhone, or other personal luxuries—often with emotional stories to solicit micro-donations from sympathetic scrollers.

This passive gold rush has attracted criticism from the content industry for being low-effort. “When someone can make money by just showing a QR code on a livestream, it tends to create a problem for full-time creators, who spend time and money making good content,” said Shudeep Majumdar, co-founder and chief executive officer of influencer marketing firm Zefmo.

This may discourage other professional creators from investing in content infrastructure, including cameras, editing software and hours of work, when simply asking for donations brings in similar income. “This lazy situation is pushing the entire industry toward low-quality content that takes no effort to produce,” he said. The income of these ‘digital beggars’ can be similar to the income of nano and micro creators, within the range of a few thousands, Majumdar estimates.

In September, a video of Lakhimpur-based beauty content creator Mahi Singh went viral as she requested donations on her personal UPI ID to fund an iPhone 17 Pro Max for her birthday, only for it to get revoked due to daily transaction limits unsuitable for mass collections.

The concept of funding creative content is not new. YouTube allows livestream viewership to pay creators for a highlighted comment and subscriptions for members-only content, while Instagram offers similar features; some use links from ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ to collect from patrons among other options. However, UPI's frictionless access has twisted this into a risky, prevalent trend labelled as ‘digital begging’, bypassing platform safeguards for unregulated QR pleas.

Majumdar flags donor vulnerabilities. “When one is scanning random QR codes from livestreams, it is extremely risky. Digital scams have doubled in the past couple of years, with thousands of Indians falling victim this year itself,” he said.

He highlighted that unlike safe platforms like YouTube, these QR codes have no protection. Scammers can create fake codes that steal UPI pins and empty your bank account or install spyware on your phone the moment you scan. Therefore, even small donations of ₹10-20 can expose one to fraud because criminals know people do not suspect danger in micro transactions.

Cyber agencies also underscore deeper threats in this ecosystem.

“It can be a way for scammers to collect your personal bank and UPI data to then curate personalised scams and attacks targeting you,” said Dhiraj Gupta, founder of fraud detection firm Mfilterit. “It can further be used for money laundering,” said Gupta. Lodha echoed this, citing his own experience with his bank alerting him to fraudulent UPI donations tied to laundering schemes.

According to YouTube, the platform takes regular action to remove accounts if they are found to violate community guidelines for the protection of their audience. Between 1 July and 30 September, 2025, YouTube removed over 12.1 million such videos, more than 97% of which were flagged by automation.