An elderly woman who needed cash to buy medicines was allegedly deceived at an ATM by a fellow user who managed to replace her debit card with another one.

Alakananda Sengupta, a retired schoolteacher, lost ₹1,51,000.

The 62-year-old went to withdraw ₹9,000 from the ATM of a nationalised bank near her home in Mukundapur on February 7.

When she could not key in “0”, the fellow user at the ATM kiosk volunteered to help.

“He said that the zero button was not working and I should opt for the fast withdrawal option that would prompt an amount. I was not comfortable with it and he offered to help,” said Sengupta.

She withdrew ₹4,000 but the next morning she got a message from the bank that she had withdrawn ₹10,000.

“I immediately realised that something had gone wrong, and I needed to block the card. But when I was asked to provide the last four digits of the card, I realised that it was not my card and that my card had got exchanged at the ATM,” said Sengupta, a retired art teacher.

Sengupta filed a complaint with Panchasayar police station.

“Police showed me the CCTV footage and said there were two men at the ATM kiosk. One of them, standing behind me, was wearing a helmet, but I did not realise that. It was also because the other man kept me busy at the machine,” said Sengupta.

“I took a printout of my passbook and saw that they had withdrawn ₹36,000, bought jewellery worth ₹75,000 and again withdrawn ₹40,000 the next day,” she said.

“The police have come to my residence several times and spoken to me. They also showed me the CCTV footage but I could not make out anything from it. So far, nothing has been recovered,” Sengupta said.

Elderly people are on most occasions easy targets for scamsters.

At an awareness programme on February 15, a cyber security expert said fraudsters are evolving with each passing day and it was impossible to pre-empt their next move.

He gave the example of the ATM of a nationalised bank in Jadavpur, where at least three people had lost money within a few days earlier this month in an alleged fraud while trying to withdraw money.

The victims told the police their cards would get locked in the ATM slot and refuse to come out.

Calls to a helpline number stuck inside the kiosk prompted them to provide their PINs to unlock the cards, they told police. Within minutes of sharing the PINs, their money was gone.

About Sengupta’s case, an officer of Panchasayar police station said on Thursday night they are yet to make a breakthrough.

“We are scanning the CCTV footage extensively,” the officer said.