Patna: Dinesh Kumar Vatsyayan, 63, a retired engineer of the water resources department living at Khakhri in Nawada district, lost Rs 80,000 from his savings account with Central Bank of India through ATM withdrawals in Mumbai, when the card was with him.
Dinesh received an SMS at 7.40pm on January 31 saying that his cellphone number, registered with Central Bank of India, has been successfully changed from 9472444505 to 9998313236. He read the message around 10pm.
Unnerved and suspecting cyber fraud, Dinesh started calling the bank's helpline number, but nobody responded. Next morning he rushed to the Central Bank of India's K.L.S. College branch in Nawada to complain, only to discover that Rs 80,000 have been withdrawn from his account.
"Bank officials told me that Rs 80,000 was withdrawn from my savings account number 3331325080 from an ATM in Mumbai in eight tranches of Rs 10,000 each. I got my card immediately blocked. All the transactions took place on February 1," Dinesh said.
"I had never applied for changing the cellphone number linked to my bank account. I am wondering how it could be changed so easily and how the money was withdrawn from an ATM 2,000km away when the card was with me," the retired engineer said.
Bank officials were also taken aback at the peculiar case because the ATM card has a cap of Rs 40,000 withdrawal in a day. Dinesh was lucky that Rs 5.30 lakh was still there in his account when the ATM card was blocked.
Dinesh, who operates the account jointly with his wife Nirmala Devi, registered an FIR (61/18) with Nawada Town police station and is now waiting for the case to be cracked. "We don't have experts to crack this case. We are waiting for supervision and directions for our senior officials," Nawada town station house officer (SHO) Anjani Kumar said.
Cyber crime experts are expressing suspicion about data leakage from the concerned bank. "This is a surprising case," Bihar Police's Economic Offences Unit (EOU) additional superintendent of police Sushil Kumar told The Telegraph. "Data from the bank is leaking somewhere and bank officials could also be involved in the case. Various aspects of the case need to be investigated."
Sushil said the fraud was not merely an electronic one, but has possibility of a manual aspect. The EOU additional SP said the case could be cracked with the help of CCTV footage of the ATM from which money was withdrawn and using various cyber crime investigation techniques.
