Step back before you seek help from strangers while facing problems in withdrawing money from ATMs. Cases of fraudsters robbing such people of their hard-earned money taking advantage of your ignorance are on the spiral in various parts of the State.
A retired Army personal being duped recently of around Rs5.5 lakh by unidentified persons who had come forward to help him withdraw money from the ATM at Jhajhra, Premnagar, Dehradun should act as an eye-opener.
The victim came to know that Rs5.5 lakh had been spirited away after ten days through transactions since the incident occurred. When he rushed to the bank officials, he was informed that the fraudster had changed his ATM card. The money was transferred through illegal transactions in two bank accounts traced at Bihar (Muzarffarpur) and Rajasthan.
Some money was also withdrawn from the ATMs located at Premnagar and Jhajhra. The illegal transaction was committed between March 18 and March 25, probe revealed.
What happened is that as the victim Siddhi Singh, a retired Army personal, had gone to a SBI ATM at Jhajhra he failed to withdraw money from the ATM. He then sought help from two persons who approached him pretending to help him.
Unsuspecting, Singh gave his ATM card to the duo to withdraw the money. Rs20, 000 was withdrawn from the ATM and was handed over to Singh.
After a few days, as Singh again reached ATM to withdraw money he faced the same problem in withdrawing money.
Worried, he approached the bank officials. After reviewing his ATM Card, Bank official said that the ATM card he was using then did not belong to him. It was changed, they said. Singh realised he had been duped by the duo whose help he had sought. They had given him another card which he had taken home without suspecting in the least of the swap of the cards. later, Singh registered a complaint and a case was registered against unidentified persons in the police post, Jhajhra. CO Manoj Kumar Katyal said that that teams have been formed to probe the case.