It pays to bank on yourself

Delhi resident's awareness campaign forces financial institution to return his stolen money

Delhi resident's awareness campaign forces financial institution to return his stolen money

Self-help lets you tide over worries. In case of Delhi resident V Raghavendran, it got him his money back.
On October 18, last year Raghavendran was shocked to receive an SMS from his bank (Standard Chartered Bank at Netaji Subhash Place, Pitampura where he held a current account) that said he had transferred Rs 1,32,000 from his account to some other account.


Web of deceit: Raghavendranu00a0had lost Rs 1.32 lakh to online fraud last
year. Pic/Mid Day

"I immediately rushed to the bank and was informed that someone had used my password and username to transfer the amount online. I got the SMS at 4:45 pm but the transaction had been made at around 1:18 pm," said Raghavendran.

Realising that this was a case of cyber crime, he immediately called the police. Then, along with a bank official, he went to the Saraswati Vihar police station and filed a written complaint.According to bank, the amount had been transferred to an account in their Mumbai branch. "I was sure it was work of a bank employee which I also brought to the notice of the bank. I have been doing Internet banking for long but I had not activated my third party transfer facility. It was only a week ago that I had got it activated to transfer funds to a relative but after a few days my account details were compromised," said Raghavendran.

Seeing no help coming from bank and the police, Raghavendran then decided to act on his own. He started sending mails and created an online forum where he wrote how he was duped, to create awareness among other consumers.

"I also stationed my office boy outside the bank and made him distribute pamphlets on which I had printed the whole account of how I was duped to the passers-by. Realising that this move of mine was generating negative publicity for their branch, a senior bank official called me and promised to pursue the case," said Raghavendran.
Finally, this month the bank refunded him the entire amount and also promised to pursue the case to catch the man responsible for this.

Hackers held
Last November, Delhi police arrested three persons, including two foreign nationals for allegedly hacking into e-banking accounts and buying expensive electronic items through them. The accused were nabbed from south Delhi and eight laptops, 10 digital cameras and 17 BlackBerry cellphones worth around Rs 10 lakh were recovered from them. Police said that many international groups of hackers were now targetting people in India. The members of these gangs often posed as bank executives and called up people and sought their account details. Sometimes they even send fake SMSes, seeking account details.