Skimming cases are alarmingly on the rise incentral part of the city with five cases reported in the last 24 hours.
Cloned debit cards have been used to withdraw cash from ATMs on and around MG Road.
While Cubbon Park registered four such cases on Monday, Ashoknagar police booked a case after Rahul Bapat, a city-based software engineer, complained that his whole salary was withdrawn by scammers between late Sunday and early Monday.
In his complaint, Rahul said he was in his home town on weekend when he received an SMS alert from the bank about the four transactions that took place on and around MG Road.
“They’ve meticulously chosen the time between 11.40 pm and 12.10 am to counter the ‘limited transactions per day’ concept,” Rahul said.
“I immediately informed the bank authorities for further procedure and later filed a complaint with Ashoknagar police,” he said.
Joint commissioner of police B Dayanand admitted that the number of skimming cases was on the rise.
“It’s the banks’ responsibility to take adequate preventive measures like installing CCTV at every ATM along with security cover,” he said.
Some banks have come forward to adopt Reserve Bank of India’s safety guidelines by generating PIN for every transaction conveyed to the account holder on his mobile phone.
This should be done by all banks to prevent such crimes in future, he said, adding that the police had initiated investigations into the modus operandi of the scammers.
“We are working on technical modalities of the crimes to further our investigations,” he said.
The Cubbon Park police received four similar cases involving fraudulent transactions of `2.5 lakh within 24 hours on Monday.
“We suspect that the gang is operating in central part of Bangalore, targeting ATMs situated on and around MG Road, Commercial Street and Brigade Road. We’ve alerted the banks to step up security to keep an eye on suspicious activities,” the police said.
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