Hyderabad: A student, who paid Rs115 for his meal at a restaurant in Secunderabad with his debit card, lost more than Rs 10,000 after its details were allegedly stolen by staff members. The victim alleged that soon after he came out of the restaurant, the money in his bank account was transferred to an online rummy website in several transactions.
An inquiry into the transactions revealed that the cash was transferred from the rummy website to a bank account owned by a person named G. Rajkumar. The victim, Perugupalli Ravi Teja, 26, has approached the police accusing a member of the restaurant staff of stealing his debit card details and looting his cash. He is also lodging a complaint against Andhra Bank at Consumer Court for not providing security features like ‘One Time Password’ (OTP).
Police suspects that scamsters copied the card details using a skimmer when the victim gave his card for payment. “I went to have lunch at the restaurant and I paid Rs 115 as the bill. After I came out of the restaurant, money from my bank account started getting transferred to an online rummy website several times till the account was fully drained,” said the victim in his complaint to the police. “Though I tried to call Andhra Bank officers to block the card, there was no help," he added.
The Mahankali police, who received the complaint, said that they had started an inquiry. Police said that since there was no OTP security feature for the card, it was easy for the crooks to loot the cash. "The offender can copy the card details using a skimmer and use the password given by the unsuspecting victim for online transactions,” a cyber crime official said.
