Explain ATM Frauds

In the present world, a large amount of the focus is on the digitalisation and the government is taking a large amount of the steps in the collaboration with the RBI to make things happen in the direction of the digitalisation. One of the very common and one of the oldest examples of the dependency of the people on the technology is the presence of the ATM’s. No doubt the ATM’s have been a major pillar in the support of the digitilisation and in supporting the growth among the people but a large amount of the frauds also takes place in this regard. One of the most common incidents that have been reported is that the owner of the debit card is having his or her card with himself or herself but certainly he or she receives a message that says some amount of the money is debited from the account and the owner is shocked as he or she has not withdrawn or spent any amount of the money ant where. The customers goes to the respective bank and get the card blocked so that any further type of this type of the transaction cannot take place but what about the transactions that have already taken place? If the bank had paid the due attention to the first complaint and blocked the card immediately and given you an alternative card, the damage could have been contained.

However, the bank obviously did not even investigate into it and told you that the withdrawal was on the account of a computer glitch. So the bank has to take the responsibility for the negligence, besides the bank failed to comply with the policy of the zero or the limited customer ability, the fraudulent electronic transactions announced by the Reserve Bank in the July, 2017. In fact there are 2 positive factors I your favour. First is the zero ability policy as per which the customer has no liability in the case of the fraudulent electronic transactions, where the bank is found to be guilty of the contributory fraud or the negligence or the deficiency. Or where a 3rd party is involved in the fraud, the customer has the zero liability if the fraud that has taken place is reported within 3 days of getting the SMS alert. So the bank has to compensate the customer in such a scenario. Second is the RBI notification widening the scope of the Banking Ombudsman scheme as per which the Ombudsman not only has the jurisdiction to resolve such type of the cases, but loss of the complaint’s time and the other various types of the expenses. This is besides the compensation for any of the loss that is suffered as a direct consequence of the bank’s omission or the commission. So please one needs to send the complaint to the nodal officer of the bank, pointing out these facts. If he fails to resolve the matter to your satisfaction with in a month, lodge a complaint with the banking ombudsman.

One particular case that was decided by the Ombudsman during 2012-2013 involves around the scenario in which when the complainant first came to know about the fraudulent withdrawal with the help of the SMS received on his mobile, the person immediately contacted the bank branch where he had an account. Instead of registering the complaint, the bank asked him to contact the call centre of the bank. The call centre told the customer that the debit was due to a technical fault and would be resolved within a week’s time. That was however, not done and the various illegal withdrawals continued. Then the call centre said they were happening through an ATM outside the country. By the time the bank blocked the card, as much as Rs 163668 had been withdrawn from his account. As a result of this, the bank accused the complainant of having negligently passed on the PIN number to the fraudsters. It also argued that the customer had not given the call centre the proper details as a result of which they believed that the complainant had very clearly mentioned that it was a fraudulent withdrawal and the given details, but the call centre personnel had carelessly classified it as a technical error. The complainant also said he had not disclosed his card information to anyone. Besides, at the time of the withdrawal of the money from an ATM in a foreign country, he was in India. Considering the deficiency on the part of the bank, the ombudsman in this case passed an award asking the bank to compensate the complainant to the extent of the unauthorised withdrawals made from the account. Of course, now with the widening of the powers of the banking ombudsman and the zero liability policy that was announced by the Reserve Bank of India, you have a much stronger case and you don not have to go to the consumer court as the Ombudsman can award you not just the refund of the money lost, but also the compensation. The process too is much simpler and also very faster here comparatively.