Buying online? Ask for a tax bill, pay after delivery

Paying after delivery limits a seller’s chance to take money without sending anything. A tax bill also gives the buyer a record of the transaction and may show that the seller operates as a registered business. These checks matter because many sellers use social media without formal registration.

Samjhana Pandit paid Rs250 as a delivery charge after refusing to pay the full price first. The seller then demanded full payment, stopped answering, and never sent the skirts. A cash-on-delivery arrangement would have avoided that advance payment. A tax bill could also have provided business details to check before ordering.

The Cyber Bureau received 2,939 online-fraud complaints in fiscal year 2024-25. Yet it returned money to only around 10 percent of complainants. Buyers should check delivery options, business locations, contact numbers, reviews, and government registration before paying online.

A tax bill is a formal sales document issued by a business. It normally records the seller’s name, tax or registration details, the goods sold, the price, and the date. The article’s headline advises buyers to ask for one, but its body does not explain the document in detail. In general, requesting it creates a paper trail.

That trail can help a buyer compare the seller’s details with information from relevant government authorities. It may also discourage anonymous sellers who do not want their identity or business activity recorded. This is especially important when a seller operates only through TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or messaging apps.

A tax bill cannot guarantee that goods will arrive or that a seller is honest. Buyers should combine it with cash on delivery, verified contact numbers, a business location, reviews, and registration checks. The article notes that only 384 e-commerce businesses have registered with the government.

Online shopping scams often begin with an attractive advertisement on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook. The seller may show appealing products, promise discounts, display many followers, or offer a price below the market rate. The buyer then contacts the seller through direct messages or a messaging app and receives payment instructions.

Samjhana Pandit saw skirts on TikTok and contacted Nari Collection Nepal through WhatsApp. She sent Rs250 for delivery after refusing to pay the full price upfront. The seller later demanded full payment, stopped answering calls and messages, and did not dispatch the products. The advance payment was the key loss point.

The Cyber Bureau says many reported cases involve buyers paying the full amount online and receiving nothing. Scammers can also use apparently legitimate payment accounts and convincing reviews or verification badges. Buyers should check cash-on-delivery options, business details, registration, and unusually low prices before paying.

Nepal’s Cyber Bureau recorded 1,373 online-fraud complaints in fiscal year 2023-24. Complaints more than doubled to 2,939 in 2024-25. They then fell sharply to 808 in 2025-26, followed by 83 complaints in the first two and a half months of the current fiscal year.

The falling figures do not necessarily mean fraud declined. Superintendent of Police Deepak Raj Awasthi said the numbers show complaints received, not the total number of incidents. Many victims may not report scams, especially when the loss is small or recovery seems difficult. Cilla Khatry, for example, did not complain after losing money on a mirror order.

Recovery is limited. The bureau has returned money to only around 10 percent of complainants. Fraudsters often use money mule accounts, which obscure the money trail. The bureau did not know why complaints had dropped sharply, so the latest figures should be interpreted cautiously.

Reviews, follower counts, and verification badges show how an account appears online, not whether its transactions are reliable. They can create confidence, but they do not confirm that the seller has a real business location, ships goods, or will respond after receiving payment. Social-commerce pages may still lack verifiable business information.

Cilla Khatry ordered a full-length mirror worth Rs7,500 from the Instagram page AE Space_7. She paid Rs2,000 in advance after seeing a verified blue tick and reviews. The seller promised delivery within two days, but the mirror never arrived and the seller stopped responding. The visible signals did not protect her.

The article advises buyers to examine reviews, but also to verify contact numbers, business locations, cash-on-delivery availability, and government registration. This layered checking matters because many sellers operate through social media without formal registration. No single online signal proves that a seller is trustworthy.

A money mule account is an account used as an intermediary for money obtained through criminal activity. It may belong to an ordinary person or be a digital-payment account. Money sent by a victim can move through that account before reaching the people behind the scam.

In Pandit’s case, the Rs250 delivery payment went to an eSewa account registered in Rajan Kumar Raut’s name. The article identifies such accounts as part of the wider problem, although it does not establish that this particular account was a money mule account. Moving money through intermediaries can separate the victim’s payment from the scammer’s identity.

The Cyber Bureau says these accounts obscure the money trail and make recovery harder. This is one reason only around 10 percent of complainants have received money back. Prompt reporting and careful checking of payment details may help authorities trace funds, but the article shows that recovery remains difficult.

Social-media commerce allows sellers to advertise through videos, livestreams, follower counts, and direct messages. Digital payments let buyers send money instantly, often before receiving anything. When sellers operate without formal registration, buyers may not know the business name, location, or responsible person. These conditions create room for fraud.

Pandit found skirts on TikTok, contacted the seller on WhatsApp, and paid Rs250 through eSewa. The seller then demanded full payment and disappeared. The account receiving the money was registered in another person’s name. Such payment intermediaries can obscure who controls the scam and where the money goes.

The article says thousands of sellers operate online, but only 384 e-commerce businesses have registered with the government. The Cyber Bureau recovered money for only around 10 percent of complainants. Stronger verification, formal registration, tax records, cash on delivery, and prompt complaints could make scams harder to carry out and investigate.