Why must you never share your MFS PIN or OTP?

The direct answer: no genuine institution ever asks for your PIN or OTP. Someone asking is itself sufficient proof that the call is a fraud. There is no exception to this — not even when it is framed as needed “for verification”.

It is worth understanding why the damage is so complete. Authorisation of a mobile-account transaction is proved by exactly those two things — the PIN and, where required, the OTP. The system assumes only you know them, so whoever knows them can move money as you. Nothing has failed in the system; what failed is that the secret left you.

The scams follow one shape: manufacture urgency, use fear or the promise of a prize, and deny you time to think. That feeling of being rushed is the clearest warning sign. Hanging up and calling the provider’s official number yourself collapses almost all of them.

A few habits help: type the PIN yourself even at an agent point, never let someone else do the transaction for you, avoid a birth year or an easy sequence as a PIN, and change it immediately if you have any doubt. If you did give it away, speed matters most — tell the provider at once.