Unknown touts, of late, have posed a serious threat to bank account holders as well as bankers in Baleswar district. The miscreants are siphoning money from bank accounts after extracting all the information of debit cards from the account holders under various pretexts.
Not only uneducated people, educated ones are also becoming preys to these dupers. The latest known victim is Parsuram Jena of village Gopinathpur Singla under Basta block, with the incident taking place between September 17 and 28.
As more than Rs 2 lakh was siphoned from Jena’s account, he approached the Superintendent of Police seeking recovery of the amount.
According Jena, he received a call from an unknown person, who identified himself as a verification officer, RK Sharma, of SBI main office in Mumbai. The prank caller stated that Jena’s ATM debit card had been blocked as he didn’t use it for a long period. He further wanted to know all the card details including the number and the PIN, etc.
Jena divulged all the details on phone assuming that the card block would cause him difficulties since his sister’s marriage was approaching.
While he never read the messages, one day he found that Rs 2.4 lakh had been withdrawn from his account through a number of online shopping transactions.
Jena approached the nearest Basta police station, but he alleged that the IIC didn’t accept his FIR. Subsequently, he approached the SP of Baleswar.
It may be noted that while cases of this type have been on the rise in the recent past, an account holder of Sahadevkhunta laos lost Rs 26,000 from his account. Similar cases are being reported from other parts of Baleswar district as well as from Mayurbhanj district.
A senior manager of a bank said, “The bank never asks any information through phone. One shouldn’t entertain such calls; on the other hand, one should reject them. Further, the bank uses to make people aware from time to time that one shouldn’t attend such calls.”