Theft of ATM Debit card and its after effects. Review on Tips for Using ATM Machine

Credit Card Fraud?

Debit Card Stolen?

Money withdrawn from your ATM?

Have you faced any of these situations?

What to do once you are faced with any of the above?

Here’s what I went through.

Some banks like ICICI, HDFC, CITIbankhave a very helpful feature wherein you receive an instant SMS alert on your mobile, the minute a transaction takes place with your ATM, Debit or Credit Card.

You have no idea how useful and beneficial this feature is.

My Debit card from an Indian Nationalized Bank was lost/misplaced presumably stolen and then ‘mis-used’ (meaning that money was withdrawn from ATM by the perpetrators of the crime)

The Indian Nationalised Bank did nothave the SMS alert facility hence I lost a decent sum of money. So if you guys out there ever crib over the few bucks charged by your Banks for the SMS alert facility please do not ever un-subscribe from that blessing in disguise and if you haven’t subscribed for it then please go right ahead and do it immediately even before you go ahead with this write-up.

OK, so now that I learnt what had happened ( no use crying over spilt milk)The very first thing I did was to get the card blocked by calling up the Bank and taking an acknowledgement for the instructions so given.

Then we went to the Bank branch, and requested for a copy of the ‘mis-used’ transactions that took place. Now this is a very useful piece of paper. It states complete details like date, time, amount and the location of the actual ATM where the un-authorised transactions took place.

These details we got from our Bank’s central ‘SWITCH’ division where all such records are archived.

Armed with these details we went to each and every ATM where these transactions took place ( 6 or 7 of them) All of the money was withdrawn in small sums from various ATMs all located in the same vicinity and within a minute or two distance from each other.

Sadly all of the so called high security ATMs did not have a CCTV camera (Shocking !) Only one ATM (CITI Bank)had this CCTV camera and when we requested them to show us their tapes, we were asked to first file an FIR with the local Police.

The local Police although quite helpful have taken almost a week but no progress despite us having done most of their leg work for them. Initially we were made to dance because we reside under the jurisdictionof one Police Station and the thefts took place under the jurisdictionof another Police Station.

Finally FIR was registered and armed with a copy of the FIR (First Information Report) we once again requested CITI Bank to show us the tapes. In two days we were called by the ‘Fraud Detection Cell’ of CITI bank to view the tapes. We could not identify the culprits and have now given up hopes of trying to solve the mystery of how our card was stolen or lost. But surprisingly the Police have still not reached this stage of investigation.

We must congratulate the various Banks that we approached because all of them were extremely swift to act, helpful and co-operative. Even the local Police department has been helpful, but are bogged down by their paperwork and protocols.  Their effectiveness is restricted with their lethargic out dated systems.

Take for example the fact that the FIR was written in Marathi. If hypothetically the report of the theft is done in Mumbai but the card owner is from Kolkatta, then would the Kolkatta Police (using Bengali script) be able to understand the Marathi FIR from the Mumbai Police (now Maharashtra Police) ?

When I posed this query I was told that the FIR is got translated and then acted upon.

Why not file the FIR in a commonly used and understood language like English in an extremely fast paced technologically evolved and e-commerce practicing country like India? Isn’t the Mumbai Police second to none and compared to the likes of Scotland Yard?

Please don’t ask me how the thieves got hold of the PIN number –It’s the clincher which is so obvious that I need not disclose here– No, don’t bother, I’ve already kicked myself a thousand times for this  B L U N D E R(actually it’s more like handing over the keys of the lock to your safe)

Do not lament my loss, nor share your sympathy

BUT

Please do learn a lesson from my predicament.

Sincere Request to all Banks : Please deploy CCTV Cameras in all your ATMs and start the SMS alert facility for all transactions - Mandatorily !

Regards

Raja