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Vanishing money: Not only ATMs but even banks are not safe

  • People have lost from thousands to lakhs of rupees within a matter of minutes, from their bank accounts
  • Insiders in the bank are alleged of selling account information to the agents
  • A data entry worker had started his own company and provided all the account details to the agents he had got while working
  • At least 10 cases of money being debited from bank accounts was registered at the Halasuru Police Station
Vanishing money Not only ATMs but even banks are not safe

Many cases have been filed in the recent days about money vanishing from accounts in Bengaluru. People have lost from thousands to lakhs of rupees within a matter of minutes. Forget ATMs the money has vanished from the bank account.

In the last month, at least 10 people had filed a complaint with the Halasuru Police Station that their money had vanished from their bank accounts within a matter of two minutes. They realised it when their phone received a message that the money has been debited from their account.

As per the reports in Times of India, at least 10 people having an account in a private bank (MG Road) had lost their money. One person had lost Rs 2.16 lakh within two minutes in 14 transactions. When he had visited the Halasuru Police Station, to file a complaint in this regard, at least nine other people had come there with the same complaint. 

Recently, there were reports that skimming technology is being used in the ATMs to find out details like pin number etc. and the money from people's account vanished.

But now the recent incidents where people have lost their money from the bank accounts is the result of the work of insiders in the bank says a report in Times of India.

In New Delhi, a person in this regard was arrested, and his confession revealed that he got the information from a data operator attached to the bank. It is said that data operators sell the information anywhere between 10 paise 20 paise per account number. Thus lakhs of account number details are being sold to the agents.

Even you might have received calls on holidays and at odd hours by someone claiming to be the authority from the bank asking for the details by saying the card will be blocked or account will be blocked.

The data, comprising card number, cardholder name, date of birth and mobile number, is in several categories and runs into more than 20 gigabytes. Most sought after data is of senior citizens bank details, police said.

The arrested person, Puran Gupta, a resident of Pandav Nagar, has claimed that he usually sold bulk data of around 50,000 people for anything between Rs 10,000-20,000. The accused is said to have bought the data from a Mumbai-based supplier. Raids are being conducted to arrest him.

The crooks used this data by posing as bank representatives and convinced people into sharing details such as the CVV number and OTP, and used these to withdraw money.

A report in TOI stated that on April 6, the cops had arrested one Ashish Kumar who used to purchase the data from Puran Gupta. Surprisingly, Gupta was working as a data entry operator.

With an idea to make money from the details of accounts he gets, Gupta had started his own company in 2010 to provide data.

"Gupta has disclosed that he had created a firm named 'First step services and solution' and got it registered on portals such as Just Dial. His clients used to call him through Just Dial and seek data required by them. The data was transferred through email," the DCP added, as reported in the TOI.

So beware and do not share your account details with anyone asking for it on your phone. If there is any discrepancy, visit the bank or the branch. Prevention is better than cure.

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