Hyderabad: A vast majority of credit and debit card fraud victims from the city are the highly educated, it has emerged.
At least a whopping 80 per cent of complainants, approaching Hyderabad’s Central Crime Station (CCS) after losing money to scamsters, consists of IT professionals, teachers, accountants, engineers, doctors and even bank employees.
The fraudsters make phone calls pretending to be bank officials for a ‘quick detail verification’ or ‘upgradation of cards’. And by the end of the conversation, they manage to extract several details — including crucial passwords and Pin numbers.
Data from Hyderabad police shows the number of cases has increased in 2016. Over 200 cases of credit and debit card frauds have been reported this year.
“A majority of those hit are white collar workers. They are doctors, engineers, IT professionals and government employees. Even those in the banking sector have been duped,” said VP Tiwari, a cyber crime investigator from the CCS.
The scamsters are using increasingly effective methods to cheat citizens.
One of the victims, a senior accountant working with a financial services firm in the city, received a call last month. The caller identified himself as an official from State Bank of India and claimed he was calling to upgrade the victim’s credit card. “My credit card’s expiry month is September of this year. The caller said he was calling to extend the expiry date and upgrade my card. He then asked me to give him my indentification details. He then asked me for the first four digits of my credit card’s number. Then, he asked for the last four digits and the expiry date of my card. He even told me that I could get gift cards and avail 20 per cent discounts on all future purchases with the card. And before hanging up, he told me someone from SBI would call me again,” said the victim.
Soon enough, a woman claiming to be an “SBI manager” called the victim . “She asked me the PIN number. She also confirmed my credit card number. Then another caller took down my date of birth and few other details. And just a few minutes after the call, I ran up a '10,000 bill on my credit card.
Meanwhile, police are urging people to avoid giving out bank details to callers as no bank ever seeks information over phone.
