Ludhiana woman offered help at ATM loses ₹1.24 lakh to fraudsters

Man switches debit card after getting her to input her PIN in an Axis Bank ATM on Tajpur Road

Fraudsters continue to target unwary debit card users. In the latest case, a 35-year-old homemaker fell prey to scamsters who withdrew ₹1.24 lakh from her bank account after swapping her debit card, police said on Saturday.

Computer hacker with credit card stealing data from a laptop concept for network security, identity theft and computer crime (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The victim, Geeta, resident of Inderpuri, Tajpur Road, said she held a savings account at Punjab National Bank. On February 8, she visited the ATM kiosk of Axis Bank on Tajpur Road to withdraw cash. There, she encountered trouble operating the machine. Meanwhile, three men and a woman entered the kiosk, and one of the men offered to help her.

Police said after giving it a go, the man asked Geeta to input her PIN in the ATM, which returned an error. The man then informed her that her card was blocked and she should contact her bank.

Later, she received a text message from her bank that ₹1.24 lakh were withdrawn from her account. It was then that she realised that the man offering her help at the ATM had swapped her debit card with a fake, and used her PIN to fraudulently withdraw money.

Assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Sukhwinder Singh, who is investigating the case, said they had asked the bank officials to provide CCTV footage of the ATM kiosk to identify the accused.

Acting on the victim’s complaint, the Division Number 7 police registered a case against the unidentified accused under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 379 (theft) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code on Saturday.