The purchase and sale data of traders present on the GST portal is being sold openly. For just 3 to 12 thousand rupees, any person can get complete information about the sales of a company by just giving its GST number. There are many agencies which are getting this confidential data and selling it to competitors.
In a sting operation, Bhaskar bought the sales data of a company from an agency in Gurugram. Usually, after getting this data, businessmen try to snatch the clients of their competitor traders by providing services at a lower price.
When the information was sought from the agency, they only asked for the GST number of the other party and
immediately told their rates. For domestic performance report, they were ready to give 3 months data for 12 thousand, 6 months for 22 thousand and 12 months data for 35 thousand. The prices of domestic sales data were less than this. They have promised to give 3 months report for 9 thousand, 6 months for 16 thousand and 12 months for 30 thousand rupees. They are selling data so fearlessly that they are even accepting payments online.
When Bhaskar spoke to the agency in confidence, they sent an offer through a WhatsApp message. They clearly wrote that all this data is from the portal of GSTN i.e. GST Network. They provide this information related to export-import, which is legally available. Such as export-import of products of a specific HS code, information related to a particular port etc. But under the guise of this, this agency is also selling domestic data, which is a violation of the right to privacy of traders.
• When we asked him on Whatsapp as to which sector’s data he provides, he boldly said that data of all sectors will be available.
■ In another conversation, he asked us for Rs 8,000 for a 3-month report of any company and Rs 25,000 for a one-year report.
They also send rates and samples
The agency also sent samples along with the rates. It had the trader’s name, buyer’s GST number, name, address, invoice date, price, tax and charges.