Lucknow: Cloned cards used to pay for dinners at three-star hotels

LUCKNOW: From shopping and paying bills to buying holiday package, bank card thieves have used other people's money at will. But in a first-of-its-kind case, stolen card data was used by cyber thugs to dine at three-star hotels in the city.
Two such cases were reported to the cyber cell of Lucknow police on Friday.
Mahanagar resident and MNC worker Mukesh Sinha received an unpleasant surprise late on Wednesday night when he received a text alert about Rs 3,500 being spent on his debit card on food bill at a three-star city hotel.
"I went to the bank first thing on Thursday morning to enquire about the transaction not made by me. The bank said data of my card had been stolen and used," Sinha told police in his complaint.
In a similar fashion, banker Payal Mishra was swindled out of Rs 2,505. Mishra, in her complaint to police, said she received the alert around 11.30pm on Thursday. "The bank told me today that my card had been cloned."
Nodal in-charge, cyber cell, Abhay Mishra said they had sought CCTV camera footage from both hotels. "We hope to find some clues from the surveillance cameras," he added.