Cops wake up to rising Internet, ATM fraud

SNS, Gangtok, 4 June 2014: Cases of cheating have gone up in Sikkim in the past few months, and needless to say, people are scratching their heads over it. Recently, a man from Gangtok was duped of more than Rs 3 lakh after a purported bank employee called him up and sought his bank account details.

Last month, a lady received a call on her cellphone from an unknown number and the caller identified himself to be an ATM service manager and asked the lady to provide him with her debit card number and some other details. Later in the evening, her cellphone rang again, but this time it was a text message saying money had been withdrawn from her bank account.

While people are now worried about the trend, the police department seems to have woken up to it.

With such cases ever rising, the four district SPs & SP/CID have been designated as Nodal Officers to deal with the cases in an effective manner, while ensuring complete confidentiality of the complainant/informer, according to M.S Tuli, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, said.

In other cases that came to light, a lady from West Sikkim was recently cheated of Rs 1,95,000 by crooks who used fake Facebook accounts and persuaded her to deposit cash in a bank account if she wanted to receive 70,000 pounds as gift.

Only yesterday, a lady was cheated when she had gone to the Central Bank of India ATM to withdraw money, where one unknown person had somehow seen her ATM pin code and also managed to exchange her ATM card when she was counting cash. Later, she came to know that Rs 30,000 had been withdrawn from her account.

“Members of the public/government employees facing any extortion threat are requested to come forward and lodge complaints with the authorities without fear,” he said. “Innocent people are being convinced that they have won lotteries, while some are being lured to lucrative offers. All should desist from providing any personal particular/financial detail to unknown persons via phones or email,” he added.