Robbers crack cards safety code

Plastic money no more ensures safety. robber have cracked its code to make crores.

Their targets are innocents, mostly elderly citizens not comfortable with ATM transactions. On the pretext of help, the criminals fleece them. The smart crooks have so far managed to evade the prying eyes of CCTVs installed at the ATMs.

Criminals changed the ATM of a person at the Bikram area in Patna district recently and fraudulently withdrew Rs 4 lakh. Police are still clueless about the criminals. An elderly citizen lost Rs 10,000 in August after an unidentified man offered to help him. Two months on, the Buddha Colony police are groping in the dark.

In the past two months, two similar incidents were reported from Begusarai, around 130 km from the state capital. "The first case occurred in August. It involved an old woman," said an officer of the Town police station in Begusarai.

"She went to the ATM of the State Bank of India (SBI) here (Begusarai). There are two machines under one roof at the ATM. One was not functioning. She swiped her card at the ATM malfunctioning. When she could not withdraw money a man offered her help and cancelled her transaction. The woman switched to the other machine, withdrew money and left. After a few days, she found Rs 25,000 missing form her account and informed us," said the officer.

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The second case of fraud was reported in September when one Dharamveer went to the same ATM kiosk to withdraw cash and found one not working.

"He cancelled his transaction and used the other machine to withdraw Rs 12,000 cash. After 10 days, he found Rs 25,000 missing from his account. These two cases have come to us as shockers. The preliminary investigations hint that a gang tinkers with the ATM machines inserting pins in the cradle adjacent to the ‘cancel’ button. Once an user cancels the transaction, it is not recorded by the ATM software and the criminals withdraw money once the victim steps out of the ATM counter," the officer said.

Officers at the Bikram police station, some 40km from Patna, are confused too.

"Probably there is a system of transfer of funds from one account to another. The victim claims to have lost Rs 4 lakh. His ATM card was exchanged with another by the man he sought help from. The matter is being investigated," an officer said. Patna has ATM counters of almost all the banks. The HDFC Bank has at least 20 ATM booths in Patna, all having guards and camera facility. Banks said they had a foolproof security system at ATMs.

Ashish Raj, the assistant manager of ICICI Bank (Infrastructure), said: "We take complete care of security at our ATMs. The same can be said about other banks. All the ICICI Bank ATMs have guards. In-built cameras in the machines start operating as soon as customers insert their cards. Also, in some ATMs, there are external cameras. The guards have been trained to look after the security issues and there are instructions for people too. But a few do not follow them. We are responsible for the security of customers till the time they are inside the ATM counters."

DSP (law and order) Lalit Narayan Sharma said: "We are trying to figure out the gang and its modus operandi. There are rules for using ATMs. People must follow them carefully and be alert."

City SP Manu Maharaj echoed him.

"The cases are being investigated and the police are working. But people need to be alert and careful while using the ATM cards," he said. The bank customers in the city said they were no more secured with the ATM cards. A few of them want to go back to the old system of withdrawing money from the tellers manually.

"Often more than one person is allowed inside the ATM counters. Guards, too, remain mum. The Axis Bank ATM near the Dakbungalow has its doors always open, particularly in the evening hours, as the air-conditioners do not work. On one instance, I have seen the guard suddenly disappearing for 15 minutes altogether. Both the banks as well as the police should be careful about these," said Nirmal Kumar Sharma, an employee at the state secretariat.