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ICICI Bank is recalling hundreds of credit and debit cards after being warned by the city police that customers’ data have been stolen. Officials from other banks — private and national — said they were also initiating similar steps.

On October 5, the city police had busted a card cloning racket. Initially, they received complaints from 64 card users and the number has been increasing ever since. “Apparently data of several people have been stolen and misused. We advise card users to change their PIN immediately,” said central crime branch deputy commissioner S Radhika.

But neither the police nor the banks have been able to estimate the number of customers affected. The police arrested Umesh Balaravindran, a Sri Lankan national living in Chennai, and four of his associates who are believed to have cloned credit cards using skimmers at ATMs to copy data.

Police said the gang also bought card details put up on a private website. Now, police have reasons to believe that more such gangs could be operating in Chennai and other cities.
In the last week, ICICI has either blocked or cancelled several cards following breach or suspecting problems. An ICCI spokesperson said the cards will be replaced free of cost within six working days.

“We continuously monitor all card transactions of our customers. If there is some suspicion in any transaction, we call the customer. This could be highvalue purchases or withdrawal from different geographical locations. We advise all customers to be careful, but there no need to panic,” the bank spokesperson said.

Some customers complained that they were worried about cards being blocked during festival season, but the bank staff convinced them saying that there were higher chances of misuse during the season.

On Thursday, Vijay G, a customer, received a call from ICICI Bank saying his credit card was being blocked as the bank suspected his card data could have been stolen. “I did not lose money, but the bank acted on caution. I received a new card on Saturday,” said Vijay.

Many banks have IPS officials on deputation from National Association of Software and Services Company (Nascom) to monitor such frauds. They also work in collaboration with the city police. Banks say they have also made it a practice to educate customers through mails and alerts on their websites and ATMs.

Central Bank of India, which has 25 ATMs in the city, has categorized them as of high, medium and low risk. Officials said nearly 15 of the bank’s ATMs are in the high risk category. “We have CCTVs in all these ATMs apart from armed guards,” a spokesperson said.

- times of india

[Emedgella]

Where are all the Sri Lankan Tamil Refugee supporters? Protect them for more frauds?