Fw: ICICI bank fraud in my own account - Please be ware - Urgent and Important
ramakrishnan iyer
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:01:06 +0530 artcollc artc...@eim.ae wrote
LOT OF BLAH BLAH, BUT STILL INFORMATIVE
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From: Manan Maheshwari [Manan-Ma...@hcl.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 6:38 PM
To: Saurav Adhikari, HCLT Corp; Mahalingam Sundararajan, HCLT Corp; Vaibhav Jain; Neha Kandoi, HCLT Corp; Pratibha Dharashiokar, HCLT Corp; Robin Sarkar, Noida; Vipin Kumar Sharma; Dhawal Geed; Madhavi Anant Jha, Noida; Pankaj Mahajan, HCLT Corp; Pamela Srivastava,SNF; Pramod Joshi; Naresh Atreya; Neha Jain; Naorem Pramesh Kumar; I.V Ranga Rao; Amit Varma; Gopal Karunakaran; Tejendra Gwala; Nikhil Sinha; PAWAN DANWAR; Gaurav Bhargava , HCLT; Rita Gupta , HCLT Corp
Subject: ICICI bank fraud in my own account - Please be ware - Urgent and Important
Dear Team,
The below mentioned fraud happened in my account a few days back and I thought I should take up this opportunity to warn each one of you so that you and your family can take necessary step to stay protected and safeguard the hard earned money in the Bank account.
The Incident:
On the 6th January 2011, I made a transaction in my account and reconciled my account on the internet banking (as I regularly do after a transaction, to check if the account wasn’t swiped twice). I was getting late for a commitment and therefore it did not strike me that I had not got any mobile alert or email notification for the debit in my account. I did not smell anything fishy no1 would have. J
On the 7th January 2011, it was Business as Usual and then I was off to Dehradun on the 8th morning to spend the weekend with my family, sister and Brother-in-law who had come down from Boston. On the 10th , SNF had a client visit and with the traffic jams spanning the complete city, I was very tired and hit the sack as soon as I reached home- not checking my internet banking transactions.
However, on the 11th , I logged onto my internet banking to check the amount in my account as I had to write a cheque to my builder from whom I am purchasing a flat. To my astonishment I could see only Rs 6,000 in the account instead of the amount which I had saved to make the final down payment to the builder. For a second, I thought that this could have been a typo error on the bank’s website, where the Bank had misplaced the two suffixing zeros (before the decimal of course ;-)) to the account balance. But as soon as I opened the mini statement, I could see that several transactions had been made without my knowledge and someone was siphoning my Money. Damn !!!!!!
I quickly ran to ICICI Bank at sector 18, and registered a complaint with them that these transactions weren’t done by me. Infact, a few of these transactions took place when I wasn’t in town. To my surprise, all these transactions were done through my own cheque book, with my own signatures on the cheques. But my cheque book was safe in my cupboard at home and I confirmed it.
The initial investigations revealed that the RTGS transactions had happened on the 7th and subsequently considerable amount of cash was withdrawn from my account through various branches of ICICI by presenting “Self” cheques and my ID proof. These transactions happened on the 8th and 10th.
The officials at sector 18, informed the branch manager of the Branch where this transactions took place and I was requested to proceed to that branch . I rushed to the ICICI bank brach at Shahdara and they showed me the photo ID of the person who has made the RTGS transaction and withdrawn the cash. I was shocked – it was my voter ID with my name, DOB, address, fathers name, my signature, but not my photo, someone else’s – the photograph of the person who had come to collect the money. The ID was stamped with a hologram and govt seal over it.. My ID had been forged. And made me weary of the complete system.
We then looked at the footage of the person who took the money from my account – characteristics of a designated criminal. I had never seen him before. We then moved to Allahabad bank where this person, who was bearing my Identity and presuming to be Manan Maheshwari, had made the RTGS transfer to – some Sanjay kumar. We checked his records in Allahabad Bank. As expected he had withdrawn every penny from his account. We took down his details and left. There was nothing else that Allahabad official could help us with, till the time we had a written FIR against the person. The ICICI bank has a final complaint from me and lodged an FIR.
What the crook knew :
The crook was aware that ICICI bank doesn’t match/ look at the photo on the ID proof with their own KYC records on their system. He used this to his advantage and left a big hole in my bank account. He also had all my personal and official details which he used to forge my Identity. Also, he knew that one can’t make a transaction of more than 1 lakh through cheque on a single day until he intimates the bank 1 day in advance.
He also knew that without approval from higher management of ICICI, he can only make a transfer of 5 lakhs and no more.
How he implemented his plan : (My inference)
He forged my ID by making a voter ID on my name. (ICICI bank official told me that he himself knew of 4-5 machines in Delhi who could have done this). He then proceeded to Vodaphone and got a mobile connection on my name providing a fake address proof. Then he went to ICICI bank and showed my identity and address proof and got my mobile banking number changed in the records of the bank. As soon as the number was updated, he called up the customer care of ICICI bank and checked my balance. As soon as he was done with this, he ordered a cheque book through mobile banking. Obviously, I wasn’t getting any intimations on my number because he had updated the number with him on ICICI records. I wasn’t aware on what was happening – I didn’t even get any email regarding the mobile number change.
The customer care person would have told him and he would have got an intimation as soon as the cheque book was dispatched/reach the designated address. He went to Dehradoon, to my communication address and collected the cheque book from the courier guys displaying the fake ID. I am assuming that by this time he had mastered to forge my signature. He came back to Delhi and implemented his plan of stealing all my money from the Bank account. He left only 6k in my account as he was aware that as soon as the account goes below 5k, the bank informs the customer through an email.
Loophole :
On ICICI part they goofed up on not checking the photo ID of the person who was making these transactions. Please note that the only bank which has this process in place is SBI
On the crooks end, he messed up to make the RTGS transfer leaving behind the details of his partner whose account is with Allahabad Bank. He also did not think about the CCTV cameras in the Bank branch.
Learning :
Please don’t share your personal details with anyone. Whenever you are applying for a home loan, credit card, or mobile number, make sure you cross the document and write across it for the purpose it is to be used. Please check you internet banking / mobile banking , if you have any on a regular basis and make sure that you change your sign on the bank records, regularly. If you get any request from the Bank about a request raised by you (which you feel that you haven’t) please ensure that you check the same with the Bank.
This incident can happen with any one of us. There is a huge mafia and they simply don’t care about who we are, where we are from . They just simply carry out this criminal activity and enjoy on someone else’s hard earned money. No matter if I get my money back or not, I would take this fraud to the highest level from my end, but would request you to inform your relatives and friends to kindly be ware.
I am in touch with ICICI bank and they feel that they would be able to turn around and return the complete amount to me.ICICI bank has already begun to rectify this loophole in their process, but the other banks are not even aware.
There is nothing to panic, but please make sure that you have all your accounts in place, visit you branch and update your latest contact details and regularly check your account online or otherwise
Cheers
Manan Maheshwari
PS: I have written this document in a free flow and on an urgent basis, hence ignore my not so formal language ;-)
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Nisal Mohamed
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