Credit card fraud: IPS officer's wife loses Rs 29,000

The wife of a senior IPS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre approached the Gamdevi Police after she received three SMS on her mobile phone alerting her about air tickets being booked using her credit card even though she wasn't aware of any such transactions. The case was registered on April 25.

The 40-year-old victim, who lives in south Mumbai, received three messages from her bank informing her about the transaction made using her credit card. Soon after this, she received a call from the Chennai branch of her bank informing her that she had reached her credit limit and could not make any more transactions. Suspecting foul play, she asked the bank to immediately block her card. She then approached the Gamdevi police and had a case registered.

According to the police, preliminary investigations revealed that the complainant's credit card had been used five times to book air tickets. Police also found that someone had initially tried to make a single transaction of Rs 1.5 lakh, but realised that the card had only a credit of Rs 29,689 left, and used up that amount.

Fortunately, the complainant had recently shopped for Rs 1.5 lakh using the card and hence only had a limited amount left in her credit card.

Police suspect some employee at some place where she had swiped her credit card recently to be involved in the crime. "Whether the credit card is cloned or whether data had been stolen to make these transactions is yet to be ascertained. We have registered a case of cheating under relevant sections of the IPC and Information Technology Act," said a senior officer at Gamdevi police station.