Mumbai man’s Rs 8 lakh gone in 150 card swipes in US

MUMBAI: Fraudsters made more than 150 transactions and swindled Rs 8.16 lakh from the account of a south Mumbai businessman’s son between April and August, with the victim receiving no alerts for any of the transactions.
Moiz Hami realised the fraud when he went to Bank of Baroda on September 11 to update his son’s passbook. The bank told Hami that fraudsters had cloned the debit card which was in the name of his son Zaheer and had been withdrawing money at regular intervals in the US.Hami said Pydhonie police had accepted a written application from him but did not file an FIR when he approached them on September 12. Zaheer, who used to work for a software firm in India, is studying in Rome.
Cyber expert suspects data loss from bank
As Zaheer was employed in India before, he had an account here. He left the country on July 15, 2018. “The bank did not send a single alert. The officials were speechless when asked why did they not inform me or block the card when transactions were being carried out every five seconds in the US,” Hami told TOI.
Hami’s complaint to the police reads, “My son, Zaheer, is in Italy and and the card is in my custody. Zaheer saved the money for his higher studies. There is only Rs 3 left now. Twenty transactions were done on May 3, May 8 and May 20 at an interval of five seconds. But the bank did not get suspicious. We checked the transaction codes and the bank has said the money was used for online payments or used through point of sale systems, which require a debit card,” said Hami’s younger son Zyed. Hami has submitted the police-stamped complaint to Bank of Baroda for further action.
Cyber expert Ritesh Bhatia said, “When the victim approached me with the bank statements, I was shocked to see that the transactions were not blocked. Most banks have strong security measures in place and when they observe such a pattern, they immediately inform the customer. If they are unable to reach the customer, they block all transactions. It is surprising that the bank did not alert the customer. It also seems that this card was not used in India at all and, hence, the chances of skimming are zero. It looks like data loss from the bank.”