Guntur: An 84-year-old retired government teacher, who was unable to draw cash at ATMs and banks due to the long queues, fell victim to fraudsters near here on Saturday. Police in Eepuru, Guntur district, said Mr Sk Hasan, a resident of Inumella, could not draw his pensions after November 8 due to the long queues.
On Saturday, a person claiming to be a bank manager called him on his mobile and promised to get him cash and sought his ATM card details. Desperate for money, Mr Hasan gave them all the details. Mr Hasan did not receive any cash but found that Rs 57,000 was drawn from his account via online transfers.
Mr Hasan said he used to used to draw the pension amount every month from the bank or the ATM, but he could not do so for the last six weeks due to the long queues. He said that after he gave the details to the caller, who spoke in Hindi, also offered him a new card and help to draw cash. Within an hour, he got a message Rs 57,424 drawn from his account. He has lodged a complain with the Eepuru police.
Cops try to get refund for victims
After victims lodge a complaint stating that their cash has been stolen by fraudsters, the cyber crime police immediately tracks down the transaction and tries to freeze the e-wallet account. The police also tries to get the cash refunded to the used by requesting the e-wallet firms.
But due to delay in response from some e-wallet company managements, the customer often uses the entire money. Police cites the examples of SBI Buddy and Airtel Money, which take days to process and respond to police requests.
“For Airtel money, we have to go through our nodal officer from the police department to send a request. An Airtel nodal officer receives it and transfer the request to his section. This takes a long time and by then the scamster would have emptied the looted cash. SBI Buddy is too slow in responding and sometimes they do not cooperate with the police,” a cyber crime official said.
Some e-wallets like PayTM are quick in responding to police requests. “In many cases, PayTM was able to freeze the account of the suspect and even return the cash to the bank account of the complainants,” he said.
Police says in these cases, detection rate is higher but recovery of money is lower. Arresting the suspect is a gigantic task as he could be sitting and operating from any place in India. “Anybody with an email ID or a Facebook account can open an e-wallet and start scamming people,” said a cybercrime official.
