New bank account holders vulnerable to debit card fraud

On Thursday, 47-year-old R. Nagamani of KK Pudur in Coimbatore was in tears at the police commissioner’s office as she had just lost Rs. 41,000 to a fraudster. The servant maid had saved the money for her daughter’s delivery, which is due next month. “I borrowed it from my brothers and employers. I could not withdraw money due to the long queues in the banks. But now only Rs. 7,590 is there in my account,” she lamented.

Her daughter believed a caller who spoke in English and said he was a bank manager. She gave the PIN number for her mother’s debit card. In a few minutes the caller made five transactions using the number and usurped Rs. 41,000. “Now I have to get money for the delivery and repay the stolen money to lenders,” she said. 

The city police say that she is not alone. There are many who have been losing money through their cards after this demonetisation as they are forced to use the plastic money. The police said that banks should therefore sensitise new customers about not to disclose their debit cards PIN number as this was a potential risk. “Over the last two weeks we are receiving four to five complaints on debit card scam. Most of them have opened a bank account for the first time. The callers claiming to be employees of the bank mentioned the name of the victim and their account number and said that the call was to confirm or change their debit card pin number,” the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Erode District R. Sivakumar told DT Next. 

Dr Sivakumar said that the miscreants know that the victims don’t have much money in hand and have deposited a major share in the banks. “We don’t know how they get the contact number and account details of the victims,” he said. On disclosing the PIN number victims were shocked to receive multiple transaction alerts on their mobile phone to the tune of several thousand rupees. “They came running to us and we asked them to approach the banks immediately to freeze any transactions from their card. It is tough to catch hold of the miscreants as they are mostly from Northern States. Such incidents are reported across the State. We are asking banks to  sensitise their new customers on such scamsters,” the SP added.