Mumbai: The South Mumbai’s district’s Consumer dispute redressal commission pulled up State Bank of India, for being negligent towards the ATM frauds, which had caused one of its customer, a loss of Rs 38,000. The commission opined that if the bank had to be more attentiove towards such ATM frauds, which were on a rise in their ATM centers, such frauds would have reduced.
The commission also held that the very fact that the ATM centers are well under the CCTV surveillance and in cases life the money frauds, the banks had to act quickly to curb the menace. The commission has thus asked the bank to pay the duped amount of the complainant along with six per cent interest on the amount from 2014. An additional amount of Rs 5,000 each was also awarded to the complainant towards his mental agony as well as his litigation charges, accordingly.
Nand Kishor Pawaskar, a resident of Curry Road, on September 29, 2014, had approached the ATM center to withdraw Rs 2000, however a few minutes later, he received a message from the Bank of withdrawal of Rs 38,000 from his account. Alarmed by the same, Pawaskar had immediately lodged a complaint with the bank’s call center.
He had also lodged an FIR about the same with the N M Joshi Marg police station. When the complainant asked the bank authiorities as to what steps they had taken against his complaint, the response from the bank was not satisfactory to the complainant.
Hence Pawaskar decided to receive information via RTI about the number of FIR’s registered with regard to similar ATM frauds from the same centre, which revealed that from January 2013-October 2014, there were total 10 FIR ‘s registered about the same fraud and till date there were only two arrests in case.
The complainant further said that regardless of the repeated offences committed in the same ATM center, the bank has turned a blind eye towards the security concerns and so a complaint was filed before commission seeking for recovery of his lost money.
The bank in its reply claimed that there are high chances that the complainant has shared his secret ATM pin with some one which has resulted in the monetary loss. Also with regard to the security comncern’s, there is always a security guard, who is always present outside the ATM centre, so the allegation’s levelled by the complaint were totally wrong and baseless, the bank claimed.
The commission after going through the evidence placed on record held the bank guilty for its negligence. The commission held that the moment, the complainant had filed a complaint about the fraud, the bank had to check on the cctv footage to see as to who else had cloned the complainant’s ATM card and had withdrawn money from his account. The bank was responsible for the security toward’s the customer’s money, which they keep it with the bank as a safety.
