Kolkata: Users of rigged ATMs to get new debit cards

KOLKATA: Several banks have decided to replace the debit cards of customers who have used two of the city’s compromised ATMs for transactions between February and July this year. This is the biggest such exercise in Kolkata, say senior bank officials.

The two ATMs that banks have under their scanner are the Canara Bank ATM at Golpark and the PNB ATM at the Mullick Bazar-Park Street crossing.

Banks have started analysing the data dump provided by Visa, Mastercard and Rupay though the entire exercise — ending with every target customer having a new debit-cum-ATM card — may take some more time.

Reserve Bank of India had issued a similar directive to banks in October 2016 following the detection of a skimming racket. The directive was not only limited to cards that had been misused; it asked banks to safeguard customers whose cards could have been exposed to potential misuse.

Banks started hot-listing debit cards when this round of complaints first surfaced on July 26. It has now decided to replace all debit cards used at the two compromised ATMs in the weeks before and after the skimming fraud took place.

The decision comes after the preliminary police probe has indicated that the two arrested Romanian suspects came to Kolkata in March and installed the skimming devices in April.


A senior private-sector bank official said they were analysing debit card usage to identify all customers who had been to the two compromised ATMs in the February-July period. “We have decided to replace all debit cards of customers who used either of these ATMs. This is a practice normally followed in ATM skimming cases. The time-frame in this case appears stretched because the probe is in a preliminary stage. We know we need to win back customers’ trust,” he added.

Another private bank official told TOI from Mumbai: “Hot-listed debit cards are being replaced immediately but we are also going to replace debit cards of customers who had been to either of the two compromised ATMs when the fraud took place. We follow a zero-risk policy when it comes to these things.”

He added that banks were also urging customers to change their debit card PIN periodically, “Ideally every three months. We are pushing for a PIN change ourselves whenever we notice any unusual debit pattern”.

A senior official of a public-sector bank in Kolkata corroborated what private-sector banking officials said. “We have already taken up the process. This is something we have done earlier, too, when similar complaints surfaced elsewhere in the country. This will be no different either,” the PSU banking official said.

The RBI 2016 directive also advised banks to “take measures, including advising customers to change PIN, blocking payments at international locations, reducing withdrawal limits, monitoring unusual patterns, replacing cards and re-crediting accounts of card holders for amounts wrongly debited”, which should come as relief to defrauded customers.