How fraudsters cloning your debit cards are trying to prevent detection

LUCKNOW: Vivek Pal Singh, a class three employee at the sugarcane department, recently received alerts on his mobile for debit card transactions.
To his horror, the Chowk resident found that Rs 12,500 was debited from his account for a mobile phone purchased in Chennai.
Singh is not the sole victim of this fraud. Kalyanpur resident Vishakha Sen, who works in the Secretariat, received a cash withdrawal message from her bank on February 1. By the time she could react, Rs 14,750 was already wiped out from her account. She was baffled to find that a refrigerator was bought from her card in Kochi.
Fraudsters cloning debit cards are now conducting their transactions in other states to prevent detection. The Lucknow cyber cell officials said that till last year, the maximum number of card cloning was done by muggers sitting in Bihar, Jharkhand and Delhi. But now the crime has spread to southern states too. There are 27 similar cases of card cloning of customers residing in Lucknow, whose money was fraudulently withdrawn from their accounts in cities like Chennai, Kochi, Coimbatore, Salem, Bengaluru and Mumbai. Between January 1 and February 15 this year, the city reported 29 card skimming cases - all of these transactions were done fraudulently in southern cities. Victims included govt employees, housewives The total amount lost amounted to Rs 13 lakh. The victims included government employees and housewives. Shopping was done in 22 cases, while money was withdrawn from ATMs in seven cases, police said.

Even police is not immune to such frauds. A sub-inspector Abhishek Tiwari posted in Lucknow was shocked to find a transaction of Rs 18,500 from his account.

"I found from the bank that a laptop was purchased from my debit card in Salem," he said. Similarly, Indiranagar resident Ramesh Kapoor was conned of Rs 20,000. The transaction was done in Chennai.

The police, however, have failed to crack even one case. People are sitting ducks, with the police unable to put any culprits behind the bar.

"We are collecting details of the locations where fraudulent transactions have been carried out in southern cities," said Abhay Mishra, nodal-incharge, cyber cell, Lucknow. Police said there seems to be a possibility that a new gang has become active and has taken shelter in southern cities.

Source: gadgetsnow.com