I am SUBRAMANI Ramaswamy, retired senior citizen settled in Bengaluru post my retirement after serving for 25 long years in Mumbai. I have 2 accounts in HDFC bank one in Sandoz branch and 2nd one being in Khar branch, Mumbai, both are under joint accounts between me and my wife Vasanthi Subramani.
On 13 December 2022, I recd a SMS at 10:39 AM stating that quote “you have added a beneficiary Vasanthi having an account number ××××9258 to your HDFC netbanking ECMS module” unquote, I was surprised to see this SMS ( since I did not add any beneficiary), immediately I logged in to my net banking to see if any beneficiary has been added, didn’t find any new addition. Since there was no OTP authentication done by me I thought this must be a fake SMS. In the meantime at 11:15 one more SMS is coming stating quote Alert deducted Rs 17890/ HDFC Bank A/c ××××3411 on 13/12/2022 Funds transferred via Net Banking not you? call 18002586161, this happens to be my khar branch hdfc account, Seeing this message I immediately ran to near by hdfc bank (J.P.Nagar branch) which is just 3 minutes away from my jayanagar apartment, and reported to the Manager that some unauthorized transaction seems happening in my account, manager immediately acted on disabling net banking, by the time the account netbanking got disabled, the entire amount sum of Rs 11081/ from Sandoz branch account and sum of Rs 49321/ from khar branch account have been siphoned off leaving just Rs 9/ as balance in the account,
Transferring of funds have happened in 4 tranches, while SMS alert for 3 transfers were received at 11:15/11:16/11:22, for the last transfer there was no SMS received. All the above money transfers including the beneficiary addition have happened without any OTP validation or any authentication from our side, the entire operation was carried out in such a manner as if the entire bank Server is in fraudsters control, and bank seems clueless on the matter, still to receive a single reply from their side, Lodged a complaint with cyber cell police department, banshakari P.S on 15th morning, the concerned officer informed us that number of similar cases of HDFC bank customers have been reported to them in last couple of days,
Crime branch report clearly states that unauthorized transactions amounting to Rs 11081/ & Rs 49,321/ have happened without any OTP authorisation hence as per RBI guidelines DBR.No.Leg BC.78/09.07.005/2017-18 july 6, 2017 wherein the customers are protected by the RBI protocol of unauthorized transactions.
This has been a real ordeal we had to go through, while Bank still seems in denial, without a single response on how did this happen. Whether we get back our money or idea is through detailed narration of sequence of events I don’t wish anyone else to go through such an ordeal for no fault of theirs, Banks do not even show any apathy towards customers probably fearing liabilities should not land up on their shoulder, I am sure they would engage countries best of the lawyers to defend their case and trying their best to pin blame on customers, despite this being an open and shut case of lapses being of the bank, even after many days not a single reply received from the bank.
This is published as the voice of the reader. The Nationalist Post Is a Digital National Media paving the path of truth.
