India is fast moving towards becoming a digital economy and many Indians prefer card transactions to cash. Today, debit and credit cards are accepted at almost all places. Be it a restaurant, pub or a shopping mall, you can pay through card. Many people believe that paying through a credit/debit card is safe, as it is swiped in your presence. But, this is not always true.
Even if the card is swiped in your presence, there are chances of your card being compromised. Recently, customers were duped of Rs 50 Lakh, through card cloning at a Burger King restaurant at a Noida Mall. In this blog, we will discuss everything you must know on this fraud.
Police recently arrested a sales manager of a Burger King restaurant in Noida’s Great India Place Mall. According to the police, the accused stole debit and credit card details of the customers, who swiped their card at the restaurant and sold these details to fraudsters to carry out fraudulent transactions.
The accused who was working at the Burger King restaurant in Noida Great India Place Mall since December 2018, had installed a skimmer in the POS machine to steal card details of customers who made payments through cards. The skimmer is a small electronic device fixed in the POS machine or ATM to steal card details. Once the card is inserted in the machine, the skimmer captures and stores key information from the credit or debit card.
With the help of the skimmer, the accused stole banking information stored on debit and credit cards. He had also installed CCTV footage right above the counter to read the Personal Identification Number (PIN) of the debit and credit cards he was cloning.
Once all these details were collected by the accused, he sold them to fraudsters at Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000. This data was then copied to a blank card and used to carry out fraudulent transactions. The fraudsters had withdrawn money from ATM machines across India. The cash was normally withdrawn from different states or countries to avoid getting caught.
The accused used to steal data from at least 50 to 60 cards each day. In a span of 3 months, more than 500 ATM cards of customers were compromised. The fraudsters had withdrawn approximately Rs 50 Lakh from the 500 ‘cloned’ ATM cards.
This fraud came to light when a HDFC Bank customer who visited the Burger King outlet, complained to the bank. The HDFC bank had received many such complaints and the last transaction tracked by the bank officials was narrowed down to Burger King. When the police visited the Burger King outlet for an inquiry, they got to know about this fraud through the CCTV footage.
In case you have lost money to such fraud, report it to your bank immediately. You will not be held liable for the lost money if you report the fraud to the bank within 3 working days.
Read More: Get the Money Back in Case of Fraud
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