The short version
- You should not have to pay to be onboarded. The normal commercial model for a Pakistani payment gateway is a percentage per successful transaction (MDR). Nothing before that.
- An upfront fee is the classic fraud pattern. It is charged as an "activation", "application", "compliance" or "approval" fee, and once it is paid the contact goes quiet.
- Urgency and guaranteed approval are sales pressure, not service. No legitimate provider can guarantee approval before it has seen your documents.
- Never send money to a personal account. A real company bills a company account, against an invoice, in its registered name.
How the scam actually runs
The approach usually arrives by WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram DM or a cold call, and it is aimed at people who have just started selling online — exactly the group least likely to know what onboarding normally looks like.
- Contact. Someone presents themselves as an agent, reseller or "onboarding partner" of a known payment company or bank. The branding looks right because it was copied.
- The offer. Instant approval, exclusive rates, no documents needed, live today. The pitch is built to sound like a shortcut past the paperwork you were dreading.
- The fee. A sum is requested before anything happens, described as an activation, registration, security, compliance or gateway-integration charge.
- The payment. You are asked to send it to a personal wallet or bank account, often with a reason why the company account "cannot be used right now".
- The escalation or the silence. Either the number stops responding, or a second fee appears — a refundable security deposit, a tax, a bank charge — to extract more before you conclude you have been had.
The documented international versions of this run from a couple of hundred dollars for small online sellers up to four figures for businesses told they are hard to approve. The Pakistani version is scaled to local sellers, which is precisely why it is worth so little to chase afterwards and so easy to repeat.
Red flags, in order of how much they should worry you
| Signal | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Money requested before approval | The strongest single red flag — treat as fraud until proven otherwise |
| Payment to a personal wallet or account | No legitimate company bills this way |
| Guaranteed or instant approval | Approval follows document review; nobody can promise it in advance |
| Pressure to decide today | Manufactured urgency so you do not verify |
| No written agreement or invoice | Nothing to enforce, and nothing to take to a bank |
| Contact only on WhatsApp or DM | No company email domain, no office, no paper trail |
| Vague about the licence | A real provider will tell you exactly what it is authorised as |
| Rates far below everyone else | A number chosen to stop you comparing, not to be honoured |
Be fair: not every fee is a scam
It would be dishonest to tell you that any provider who ever charges anything is a fraud. Some legitimate businesses do charge for genuine, separable work — a custom integration, a development retainer, a bespoke plugin build, or a POS device you are buying. Banks sometimes have their own account-opening requirements.
The distinction is not whether money changes hands. It is what the money is for, who it is paid to, and when:
- A legitimate charge is for defined work or hardware, invoiced by a registered company, to a company account, with a written scope — and it is not a precondition for being allowed to apply.
- A scam fee buys you access to the application itself. You are paying for the privilege of being considered, which is not a service anyone sells.
If you are quoted a setup fee by a provider you otherwise believe is real, that is a commercial decision, not necessarily a crime — plenty of Pakistani gateways onboard with no setup charge at all, so you can simply go elsewhere. Compare before you accept one.
How to verify a provider before you send anyone money
- Go to the provider directly. Type the website address yourself. Do not use the link in the message — the whole point of a cloned site is that the link looks right.
- Phone the number published on that site, not the number that contacted you, and ask whether the person is theirs.
- Ask what they are authorised as. Payment businesses in Pakistan operate under the State Bank of Pakistan framework. A real one answers this plainly; you can take the answer to the SBP website and check it.
- Demand the commercials in writing before you commit — MDR, settlement timing, refund and chargeback handling, and every other charge. Get it in an email from a company domain.
- Check the company exists. SECP registration, a real address, a website that predates last month.
- Refuse personal-account payments outright. No exceptions, no explanations accepted.
If you have already paid
- Stop sending money immediately. Once a second fee appears you are in a chain that only ends when you end it. A "refundable" deposit to release the first payment is the same scam.
- Tell your bank or wallet provider the same day. Speed matters more than anything else for any chance of recovery.
- Keep everything — chat logs, numbers, account titles, receipts, the website address.
- Report it. The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency handles cybercrime complaints in Pakistan, and your bank has its own fraud channel.
- Warn the provider being impersonated. They usually want to know, and it helps them get the fake pages taken down.
- Do not feel stupid. These scripts are built to work on competent people, and they target newcomers precisely because the real process is unfamiliar.
What normal onboarding actually looks like
So you know what you are comparing against, a standard Pakistani gateway onboarding runs roughly like this:
- You sign up on the provider website yourself. No fee.
- You submit business documents — registration or NTN, CNIC, bank account details, your website.
- The provider reviews them. This takes anywhere from hours to a few days, and it can be declined.
- You get test credentials and integrate, or install the plugin for your store.
- You go live, and from that point you are charged a percentage of successful transactions.
Money moves in one direction during that process: from your customers to you, minus the provider cut. If anyone reverses that direction before step five, something is wrong.
Where Rapid Gateway stands
Rapid Gateway does not charge an onboarding, activation or approval fee. You create an account on the site, submit your documents, and if you are approved you integrate and start transacting. Nobody from Rapid Gateway will ever ask you to send money to a personal account to get set up — if someone does, they are not us, and we would like to hear about it at our contact page.
Apply the checklist above to us as well as to everyone else. Ask for your commercial terms — rate, settlement timing, and any other charges — in writing from a rapidgateway.pk address before you go live, and keep that email. A provider that will not put its terms in writing is telling you something, and that is true whoever they are.
Frequently asked questions
Is it normal to pay a setup fee for a payment gateway in Pakistan?
It is not the norm. The standard model is a percentage per successful transaction, with no charge to onboard. Some providers do quote a setup fee as a commercial choice, which is not fraud in itself — but since others charge nothing, you are free to compare and decline.
Someone is using a real company name and logo. Does that make them genuine?
No. Logos, screenshots, testimonials and entire websites are trivially copied, and impersonating a known provider is the most common version of this scam. Verify through the provider own published contact details, never through the ones you were sent.
They are asking for a refundable security deposit. Is that different?
Treat it the same way. "Refundable" is a word, not a protection, and a deposit demanded before approval has the same shape as every other advance fee. If a genuine provider ever required security it would appear in a signed agreement, not a chat message.
How do I check whether a payment company is licensed in Pakistan?
Payment businesses operate under the State Bank of Pakistan framework, and SBP publishes information about authorised institutions. Ask the provider exactly what it is authorised as and under which name, then check that name yourself rather than taking a screenshot as proof.
Can I get my money back?
Sometimes, if you move fast. Contact your bank or wallet provider the same day and report it to the cybercrime authorities with your evidence. Recovery is far from guaranteed, which is exactly why the verification steps matter more than the remedies.
The bottom line
As an online seller in Pakistan you should not be paying anyone for the right to be onboarded. Pay for transactions once you are live, pay for genuine work you asked for, and pay nobody for access to an application form. Create a Rapid Gateway account — it costs nothing to apply — or report an impersonation attempt if someone has approached you using our name.