Cheque Book Scam

Woman swindled of 2.5 lakh rupees

Next time a cheque book is delivered to you through courier, ensure that it contains the prescribed number of cheques before accepting the consignment.

Here at Bhayander, Varsha mehta has to receive a cheque book which she requested for. She had it delivered to her but later on November 7, she receives an sms notifying that 2.5 lac rupees has been withdrawn from the joint account she is holding with her husband Nalin. When she contacted her Bank she was informed that the cheque issued from her account carried her signature.

On realising that her signature had been forged, Mehta lodged a complaint with the Bhayander police. During investigation, the police learnt that Mehta had received the cheque book from the Sigma Express Courier which has an office at Jesal Park in Bhayander.

The story behind is 'The courier boy Sukumar Nair along with three ICICI employees Chhotelal Jaiswal (28) from Thakur Village, Kandivli branch, Dinesh Chourasiya (25) from the Thakur Complex, Kandivli branch, and Ajay Prajapati (22) is responsible for the fraud. The courier boy manages to open the sealed parcel having the cheque book and after tearing a leaf or two would seal it again and deliver.

Nair then handed over the blank cheque to his accomplices, who deposited the cheque of Rs 2.5 lakh with Mehta’s forged signature into the account of a Charkop branch customer Nikita Khandekar. The money was then withdrawn from Khandekar’s account, again by forging her signature.This kind of fraud though older is still occurring due to the fact that we are not careful enough to verify whether the cheque leaves are in proper condition before receiving them.

The police have appealed to people to ensure that cheque books delivered through courier contains serially numbered leafs as mentioned as it is easy to overlook cheques torn from the middle of the book.

SBI Credit Card Scam

The Video posted here to be true is a disgrace to the Indian nation since the complaint made is on the State Bank of India which is believed to be Nation's pride. It pictures the way Banks cheat the customers( to be true they wont cheat, but the disclosure of risks will not be open) and I hope you get some awareness before giving your consent to any of the promotional offer you are offered particularly over Telephone. If you have the patience to go through the Terms and conditions first do that before giving your consent right away. Banks never disclose the underlying risks in any of the things they do,.. So, beware.

Australians a soft Target for Fraudulent Transactions

A recent survey conducted by a number of organisations all around the world indicate that Australia is a Land of Milk and Honey for the fraudsters. So what forms the basis of this theory, common let us have a glimpse. The first evidence for the above theory is from ACI, a provider of application softwares for electronic payments, surveyed some 2409 people globally out of which 310 responded were from Australia. The results of survey were as follows

• One in ten Australian respondents had faced card fraud once
• 2.58 percent were unlucky enough to lose funds twice.
• 1.29 percent claimed to have been a victim three times.
• 0.64 percent of them have experienced more than three occasions.

The irony here is that in the US and UK, 27 percent of respondents had been hit by card fraud in the past five years, compared to seven percent in Dubai, eight percent in Germany and 15 percent in China and Singapore.

Police say the 2009 figure will be massively higher than 2008, with more than 190 ATMs already subjected to skimming attacks so far this year. If this rate continues, 250 ATMs will have been compromised by year's end, compared with just a handful in 2008.

Top Romanian fraud officer, Inspector Elvis Tudose, says his country's crime gangs have found Australia in a big way this year because of a simple feature: the magnetic stripe on the back of cards that makes skimming far easier.

People's names, identity and card data are installed on the black strip on the back of cards. But new cards now offered by banks overseas contain a smartcard chip impregnated into the card, making skimming far harder.

"The criminals thought it would be a good idea to move their field of operations to Australia," Insp Tudose said. Eastern European criminals make multiple card copies and withdraw money using customer PINs.

Supt Hay says this allows criminals to be quick and deadly in cleaning out accounts
Australian Payments Clearing Association indicates incidence of credit card fraud rose from 18.6 for every 100,000 transactions in 2007 to 21.8 per 100,000 transactions in 2008. The incidence of debit card fraud dropped from 2.3 in 2007 to 1.7 in 2008 (again, for every 100,000 transactions.)