ATM fraudsters dupe 50 people of lakhs of rupees in Gurgaon by cloning debit cards

At least 50 people have reportedly lost lakhs of rupees after swiping their debit cards at a tampered HDFC Bank ATM at Unitech Cyber Hub in Gurgaon. These people received SMS alerts of money being withdrawn from their accounts without their permission on May 1, a report by India Today said. It is suspected that fraudsters installed some device in the ATM to collect the data of people who swiped their debit cards.

The victims of this ATM fraud work at various companies located in Gurgaon's Cyber Hub. The report said that the device to collect debit card data was put into place sometime in April, while the scamsters waited to strike after salaries were credited to the accounts of their victims on May 1.

According to the report, Neeraj Jain and Naresh Nodia received SMS alerts of large sums of money being withdrawn from their accounts in United States. After they filed complaints in the matter, several other victims also approached the police, reporting similar transactions. Police investigation so far shows that debit cards were cloned using the device installed in the ATM which transferred the details to fraudsters.

Coming to know of this, HDFC Bank promised that the incident will be thoroughly investigated and the victims will not lose any money. "An incident involving our ATM in Gurgaon has come to our notice. While a police complaint is being filed, matter will be investigated to get to the bottom of this, we'd like to assure all customers that there'll be no financial loss to them. Deeply regret the inconvenience," tweeted Neeraj Jha, head of corporate communications, HDFC Bank, Mumbai.

Meanwhile, some victims tweeted that the bank returned the fraudulently transferred sum to their accounts with restrictions on withdrawal, which were later removed.

"Day 3 update: HDFC has reverted my unauthorized transactions of Rs 40,000 and it is no more on hold as per bank. Bank has also started reverting money of other victims," Kapil, one of the victims of the ATM fraud, posted on Twitter.