Obliging bank customers find themselves poorer by thousands

Two men provide card details to callers claiming to be from bank

Earlier this month, Siddaraju (65), who runs a vulcanising shop on Nazarbad Main road in the city, received a call on his mobile phone from a person identifying himself as an official from a public sector bank. The caller told him that his ATM card had expired and asked him to part with not only his 16-digit card number, but also his four-digit personal identification number (PIN) to renew the card.

An unsuspecting Mr. Siddaraju obliged the caller by sharing his card details and even switched off his mobile phone for a couple of hours as per the caller’s advice to “facilitate speedy renewal” of his ATM card. Hours later, when he went to the ATM to check his account, he found that he had become poorer by Rs. 29,000 following a series of back-to-back online purchases.

Second victim

Abdul Khader, a 58-year-old employee in the engineering department of the Railways, also received a call on August 11 on his mobile phone from a person claiming to be a bank official. Mr. Khader too parted with his PIN and account number as sought by the caller who warned that his account would become defunct if he did not do so.

Though Mr. Khader realised something was amiss and went to check his bank account hours later, it was too late. A total of Rs 18,000 had been debited from his account owing to multiple online transactions.

Both Mr. Siddaraju and Mr. Khader, who are customers at different branches of State Bank of Mysore (SBM) in the city, have lodged complaints with the police. The bank officials have given the police information pertaining to the websites where the transactions were carried out.

A senior official of SBM in Bangalore, who handles complaints, told The Hindu : “It is possible for fraudsters to carry out such illegal transactions online using the ATM, PIN and account numbers. The onus is on the customers to protect their PIN numbers. Banks never call and ask the customers to provide such details.”

Though the police are trying to trace the culprits by detecting the mobile tower from where the call emanated and the IP address, advocate Mirza Faizan, who also represents the Global Cyber Security Response Team, said it was possible for fraudsters to fake the IP address.

“Investigations so far have revealed that the fraudsters called from somewhere near the border of Jharkhand. We have written to the authorities to pursue the investigation in co-ordination with the mobile phone service providers,” said Poovaiah, Inspector, Nazarbad police station.