Pune: E-mails about Rs 24.98 lakh debit from account serve morning shock to techie

PUNE: A software engineer from Dahanukar Colony in Kothurd got a shock of his life when he swiped on the screen of his cellphone just after waking up around 5.30am on March 22. He came across several e-mails of bank transactions, collectively debiting Rs24.98 lakh.

When the techie (48) checked the bank statement, he found the amount was siphoned off from his account between 3.19am and 4.56am through 11 online transactions. He contacted his bank’s call centre to block his debit card and bank account. He then filed a complaint at the Alankar police station.


After the probe, the Alankar police on Tuesday registered an offence against five fraudsters under the relevant sections of the IPC and IT Act.

Inspector Santosh Barge of the cybercrime cell told TOI, “Prima facie it could be a case of card cloning. The fraudsters could have got the techie’s debit card data and siphoned off the amount after cloning the card.”

The case

The techie and his wife have a joint account in a private bank. On March 22, he found multiple e-mails of debit transactions from their account, OTPs and payee additions to it.

“The OTPs were not initiated by him,” an officer said, adding that he had also received SMSs on his cellphone related to the fraudulent transactions.

The techie stated in his complaint that he or his wife did not share any information related to their bank account with anyone. “The complainant also stated he did not apply for new SIM card for his cellphone,” the officer said. Prima facie probe revealed the amounts were transferred to different accounts in Karnataka and Gujarat.