Fraudster tampers ATM, withdraws Rs 26,000 from woman's a/c

Mumbai, Feb 5: A woman lost Rs 26,000 as she fell prey to a fraudster who allegedly tampered with an

and siphoned off

from her

after she unsuccessfully tried to withdraw

from an ATM kiosk in south Mumbai, police said on Wednesday.

Rita Yadav, who works with a law firm, had on January 18 evening walked into an ATM centre of ICICI bank in Fort area of south Mumbai to withdraw cash, according to police.

The 30-year-old customer of the bank inserted the debit card in one of the three ATM kiosks when the system got stuck and she pressed cancel button, before moving on to another ATM machine.

However, she faced a similar problem following which she moved to the third machine, police said.

"A man, who appeared to have been in the ATM centre for a long time, advised me to use the third machine saying that the other two were not working properly. After withdrawing Rs 1,000 from third machine, I received a text message on my mobile for the same from the bank. Within five minutes of my withdrawal, to my shock I received one more text message which stated that Rs 26,000 had been debited to my account," Yadav said in her complaint.

Panicked, Yadav rushed to the unmanned ATM centre to find out the suspicious cash withdrawer, but in vain. She rang up the ICICI customer care representatives, who claimed that the needful would be done, police said quoting her complaint.

However, when there was no response from the bank representatives even after six days, she visited the bank in Fort and went through the CCTV footage, in which two men moving suspiciously near the ATM were spotted, she claimed.

The CCTV footage showed that the man, who had informed her on January 18 that the two ATM machines were not working, had used the same machine soon after she had left the place, the victim claimed. On January 25, Yadav lodged FIR with MRA Marg police station, which is yet to get a breakthrough in the case.

Police suspect that the ATM machine might have been tampered, so that it gets hanged when transaction is underway. As the customer walks away thinking the machine has hanged, the fraudster withdraws cash from the victim's account.

"We sought the ICICI bank to share the CCTV footage of the ATM, but they are yet to respond. We are working on the case," senior inspector Ashok Jagdale said. Despite repeated attempts, ICICI bank officials could not be contacted.

PTI