If you find your cellphone has strangely got deactivated for a 12-hour period, check out if you’ve been a victim of a netbanking fraud.
If you find your cellphone has strangely got deactivated for a 12-hour period, check out if you’ve been a victim of a netbanking fraud. Criminals are increasingly resorting to the twin strategies of hacking into bank accounts and intercepting SMS alerts from reaching their targetted victims.
Sourabh Jain, 31, a senior business analyst with Wipro Technologies in Hinjewadi, who was duped of Rs2 lakh through an Internet banking fraud, is unhappy with the lack of progress in the case by the Shivajinagar police and the cyber crime cell of the city police, three months after the incident.
The first information report (FIR) lodged by him on December 3 states that on the night of October 15, an unidentified person transferred Rs1 lakh from his ICICI Bank account into three accounts of ICICI Bank using his identity, password and transaction password. Again, in the early hours of October 16, the culprit again transferred another Rs1 lakh into the same three ICICI Bank accounts, one in Aundh and two in branches in Thane.
Sourabh told DNA that the crime happened swiftly in a day-night operation, although he had never shared his login and password details with anyone. He said the netbanking criminals appeared to be professionals as they had simultaneously managed to block his SIM card, as a result of which he could not get SMS alerts sent by his bank.
“I observed that between the evening of October 15 and morning of October 16 my SIM card was blocked. As a result, I could not get the SMS alerts sent by my bank,” he said.
Sourabh later found that at 7pm on October 15, an unidentified person misrepresented him and requested the Ulhasnagar branch of Idea Cellular Ltd to deactivate his SIM card by claiming it was lost.
The criminal then managed to get the company to replace his SIM card for the same number using a forged PAN card, driving licence and a copy of an FIR for the lost SIM card, Sourabh said. The replacement SIM card was used to accept and confirm the netbanking transfers.
Sourabh said the culprits can be easily traced as the transaction details are available with Idea Cellular and the three branches of ICICI Bank where his money was transferred.
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