27 September,2011 06:57 AM IST | | Imran Gowhar
The Royal Bank of Scotland was in the news recently after it filed a complaint of cheating against one of its employee for swindling Rs 41 lakh.
Now, a customer with the same bank has filed a complaint alleging that Rs 1.4 lakh has been withdrawn from her account.
Sana Rezwan said that she received an SMS alert informing her that she had been debited for the amount, but shockingly, that transaction took place when her card was in her all the time.
She immediately checked with the bank and discovered that two transactions had been conducted at the Bangalore Central Mall for the total of Rs 1,47,680.
Sana reported the fraud to bank staffers and authorized her card to be blocked right away, following which she filed a case at the Ashok Nagar police station on Friday.
Meanwhile, it took authorities of the UK-based bank five years to detect the fraud committed by its employee B Suresh, who siphoned off Rs 41.4 lakh belonging to customers.
The fraud came to light during an internal audit at the bank, following which K Mehta, head of operations of the bank, filed a complaint with Ashok Nagar police against Suresh, who was heading the liability and assets department at the bank's Richmond Road branch.
Mehta in his complaint accused Suresh of withdrawing and transferring the amount between September 1, 2005 and May 4, 2010.
Investigations revealed that Suresh had conducted 20 transactions on various occasions to transfer the amount to his personal account.
After cooperating initially with the internal enquiry, he later began evading questions and thereafter kept away from office.
After several attempts to reach him failed, Suresh finally replied via SMS stating that he was feeling guilty and was on a pilgrimage with his family.
Confession?
His message stated, "Sir I am sorry for not taking calls. I have nothing to say right now and am in Mangalore attending a pilgrimage with the family. I don't have face to enter the bank."
The Ashok Nagar police have taken up the case and are investigating. "We are trying to track Suresh down for questioning," the cops said.
Legal advisor of the bank Seetharam, when contacted refused to divulge much.
"The fraud committed by Suresh is pending enquiry and regarding the online fraudulent transaction, I think it is due to customers negligence for knowingly or unknowingly revealing the password, which led to the incident," he said.
