New Delhi:
In the crime capital of the country, if somebody tries to lend a helping hand, especially with ATM-related troubles, be very careful. An unidentified group active in the NCR region is duping customers of Punjab National Bank. Not only the choice of victims, but their modus operandi is quite novel too.
Reportedly, a person from the group waits for the prey at PNB ATMs, posing as a customer. If another customer faces a problem in withdrawing the money, he offers to help, all the while observing the PIN that the victim is punching in.
Then, with a swift sleight of hand, he replaces the victim's card with a similar looking card. As the PNB ATM cards do not carry any name, by the time the victim realises he is not carrying his own card, his account is already empty. The main twist to the tale is that the replaced card also belongs to another victim, who has been duped earlier in the similar fashion, and so the cycle continues.
The whole operation came to light when two Noida residents lodged a complaint with the police on July 6 that they were cheated of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 56,100, while trying to withdraw money in Sector 27. Parveen Mohan, a resident of Sector 19, first came to know she has been duped when she received a call from Pratap Singh, an employee of JCT Technology.
"He said he had my ATM card. I immediately went to the bank to find out that the card I had belonged to someone else and Rs 56,100 were missing from my account. Then I recalled that on July 2, I had gone to the ATM, where a man had helped me withdraw money," said Parveen.
Pratap Singh's narrates a similar tale. "I was in an ATM vestibule when two-three people came inside. One of them forcibly tried to help me. I turned back to tell them to mind their own business. I think my card was swapped in that fraction of a minute," he said.
In the six transactions done through Singh's card, apart from cash withdrawal, money was also transferred to another PNB account holder, one Mohammad Kamruddin of Khanpur. When MiD DAY contacted Kamruddin, an auto mechanic by profession, he claimed he himself was a victim of financial fraud.
"I am a simple mechanic. I had invested money in a chit fund. In March, I came to withdraw some money. As I did not know how to use an ATM card, a man came forward to help me. I gave him my card. It was a month before I realised that all my money was gone. I contacted the bank and lodged a complaint. I realised my account was still being misused when I got a call from Pratap Singh. That is when I closed the account," he said.
It is suspected that the group has duped several people in Delhi as well. Dheeraj Kumar, a Delhi-based NDMC employee, has also lodged a complaint with his bank and the police. Rs 72,000 were siphoned off from his account in a similar style. The police suspect all the cases are interlinked. "We have asked for the CCTV footage from the ATMs," said SHO, Sector 20, Noida. The bank, meanwhile, is also waiting for the CCTV footage.