Ex-top cop Shankar Bidari gets money back from online cheat

A West Bengal caller had robbed him of Rs 89,000 two weeks ago, but the former top cop talked him into returning the booty

Shankar M Bidari, former DG-IGP of Karnataka, has got back the Rs 89,000 he lost to cyber fraud in the second week of October.

He was getting ready to leave for Dubai and was about to withdraw money from an ATM when he got a call saying he had to update his PAN or his account would be blocked.

“I was in a massive hurry because I was leaving for Dubai and I did exactly as I was told. The caller offered to help me update my details if I shared my OTP. I agreed because I was in a rush. After I gave him the OTP, I realised that Rs 89,000 had gone out of my account,” he told Metrolife.

He said the caller was convincing and sounded like he was from the bank. “It was when he said that the payment was to be made to Flipkart that I got suspicious and checked my phone. I knew that I had been cheated. I threatened him that if he didn’t return my money, I would go to any extent to expose him and get him caught,” he says.

Soon, the fraud, calling from West Bengal, confessed to the crime and returned the money. Bidari says he had also filed a police complaint by the time he got back the money.

Bidari is not alone. Vibuthi, a Bengaluru homemaker, lost Rs 40,000 to an online confidence trickster.

“I had applied for a new ATM card and the morning after I received the card, I got a call saying it was from the bank. They gave me my full name and my three-digit CVV number and knew all my details. They asked for an OTP and even as I was reading it out, Rs 20,000 vanished from my account. I lost another Rs 20,000 the next minute,” she told Metrolife.

She has filed a complaint with the cyber police station. While the bank has said it would block the account to which her money was transferred, the police weren’t confident about recovering the money. “My brother did some background checks and traced the fraud to Chattisgarh,” she says.

Thousands conned in Bengaluru every day

The cyber crime wing of the Bengaluru police recently met heads of all banks and told them how the city alone contributes 47% of the total cyber crimes cases in the country.

A senior official with a reputed bank, who attended the meeting, says, “They urged each bank to immediately set up a 24/7 call centre to deal only with complaints of cyber crime.” A lot of crime happens when people bank on their phones. Some banks have put in place three-factor authentication for mobile banking, with the last question being the toughest.

“You fill these questions at the time of opening the account,” says the official. But, he says, most banks try to keep the process simple to save time and ensure a smooth Net banking experience for customers.

‘Bring back in-person banking’

Dr T P Vipin, advocate and criminologist, says the frauds send messages to potential victims and ask them to fill a form.

“That is how they collect card and Aadhaar details and date of birth. They use this to track down account details and cheat,” he says. Every bank keeps a list of customers’ personal details. If a caller sounds convincing, there is a good chance that he is either a former employee or someone who works with a mole inside the bank, he says. Vipin recommends a partial return to in-person
banking.