If you thought you can deposit your hard-earned money in a bank and rest easy, think again. In a case that is bound to give you sleepless nights, a 62-year-old woman, Uma Devi Nambiar, a resident of RMV II Stage, was cheated of Rs15 lakh by fraudsters who not only forged the signature of the account holder, but also applied for a debit card with a requisition to change the postal address.
Uma Devi was confident of getting returns on her Reliance Mutual Funds, in which she had invested Rs30 lakh in 2006 through Axis Bank’s Koramangala branch. All was going well, or so it seemed.
On January 10, she received an email from the bank, stating that her debit card has been issued to her new address. But here’s the twist: Uma Devi had never applied for a debit card; nor had she requested for a change in address.
Sensing something fishy, she rushed to enquire at the bank. But a bigger shock was in store for her. The bank not only confirmed that her debit card had been issued—that too at a new address (which she never applied for)—but a whopping Rs15 lakh had also been withdrawn from her savings bank account, from which money was automatically being transferred over the years towards the mutual funds that she had invested in.
The bank insisted that she had indeed requested for a debit card and a change in address. So Uma Devi asked for the documents submitted to the bank. The bank produced the documents; and in yet another shock to Uma Devi, she discovered that the documents carried forged signatures of hers.
It turned out that someone, using her bank details, had applied for a debit card and also filed an application for change of address by forging her signature.
Uma Devi filed a complaint with Koramangala police on January 12, 2012.
What has baffled the investigators is: How did the bank clear the debit card as well as a change in address without double-checking with Uma Devi?
Uma Devi told DNA she did not want to discuss the issue till the police investigated and tracked the people behind this con game.
A senior Koramangala police official said, “We are trying to track down the address (the new address) which the bank delivered the debit card to and have also sought CCTV images from the bank to identify the accused.”
The police have refrained from disclosing the new address to which the said debit card was supposed to have been delivered.
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