Posing as the cyber security staff of a bank, a woman obtained the identification number and withdrew cash from the salaried account of a software professional, leaving the victim with just Rs 740 to use.
Posing as the cyber security staff of a bank, a woman obtained the identification number and withdrew cash from the salaried account of a software professional, leaving the victim with just Rs 740 to use.
Sandeep Bose, working as designer for MindTree, a city based Information Technology company, has filed a complaint with the Frazer Town police. Sandeep said that he got a call from a woman identifying as staff of cyber securities of ICICI Bank.
"She informed me that I would be getting an SMS from the bank with a unique identification number (UIN) and that I need to share it with her," Sandeep told MiD DAY.
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Log on to ICICIbank.com and enter your identification number to confirm.' Sandeep said, "The message also warned me to be beware of the frauds."
He got another call from the same woman, who calledu00a0 him to know whether he had got the number. When Sandeep replied in the affirmative, she asked him the number, which he unsuspectingly gave.
About 20 minutes later, Sandeep received an SMS alert from the bank stating that a withdrawal of Rs 32,000 had been made from his account.
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To his shock, he found out that he had only Rs 740 remaining in his account.
He called up the customer care service to complain where the executives suggested that he could have been cheated by online fraudsters. Sandeep later filed a complaint with the customer care and asked them to block his account.
The Pulakeshi Nagar police have taken up the case and are investigating. They suspect that it could be online hackers who use different techniques to get the PIN number of the customers to steal the money from the account online. "We have some leads and are working on it," said a police officer without divulging more.
Bank responds
A spokesperson from the ICICI Bank said, "ICICI Bank has the best in class security systems in place for online banking. It is practically impossible to fraudulently transfer money through the online medium unless the personal details are compromised by the customer's inadvertently or otherwise."
ICICI Bank sends a code (UIN) by SMS on the customer's mobile phone every time a new payee has to be added. A customer needs to confirm the payee by entering this UIN.
In this case, ICICI Bank sent the UIN to the registered number of the customer as per the standard process.
"As a responsible bank, we repeatedly advice our customers not to share confidential details and be careful of mails that seek such unwarranted information. We will extend all the help necessary for the police to investigate the matter," he added.
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