KOLKATA: An ATM in Salt Lake’s GC Block is being probed by police for debiting money from customers’ accounts but not dispensing cash. The chief manager of the Salt Lake branch of a public-sector bank has approached Bidhannagar Police seeking a probe after several locals — many of them pension holders — complained that when they went to the ATM to withdraw money, it was debited from their account but they never got the cash.
According to the complaint, these incidents started from 12.19pm on February 14. The bank lodged the complaint on Thursday.
The bank has handed investigators a DVD containing CCTV footage, which reportedly captured images of two persons who had stepped into the ATM on February 14 around noon. It is still not clear how they tampered with the machine, but the first customer who stepped in after them, 19 minutes later, complained to the bank that the ATM did not dispense cash even though the amount was debited. The bank suspects tampering by the unidentified duo.
The incident has spread panic in the area. “The ATM has been closed for the past four days. I must be careful next time when I withdraw money from here. I do not have an account here, but use this ATM when the one belonging to my bank runs out of money,” said Swapan Das, an elderly resident of the area.
The ATM is located in the heart of GC Block, barely a minute from the community hall and among at least five ATMs of other banks and top retail shops.
Himankar Das, chief manager of the Salt Lake branch who lodged the FIR, said he was not authorized to speak to the media on this.
Internal bank fraud investigators of some leading banks suspected this could be the act of an organized “glue” gang. “The gang pours glue and tampers with the keys. They ensure that the money withdrawn stays in the tray. When a customer leaves the ATM thinking the cash has been declined, the accused return and push the tray to withdraw the money. Banks have now developed technology to guard against such attempts,” said an investigator.
“An ATM is replenished with cash at intervals. Once the cash is inserted into the cash trays, the ATM is manually fed data on the exact amount refilled. The ATM is then controlled remotely. In some cases, the cash in the trays was lesser than the data. So there comes a point when the ATM data says it has enough cash, but the cash trays have emptied out. This can be detected if the bank branch conducts physical audit of the ATM,” an officer said.