This could not have come at worse time for one from the beleaguered IT sector. For 39-year-old Jitendra Gopal Kanitkar,a resident of Paud Road in the city,a visit to the ATM on Monday turned into a nightmare when he found his debit card was no more functional,that a new one had been issued in his name,and that Rs 7.17 lakh had been withdrawn from his ICICI Bank account over the preceding five days all without his knowledge. Kanitkar has lodged a complaint with the Chatushringi police station against the unknown conman who had called up the bank earlier posing as Kanitkar. The police have blamed the faulty verification process the bank for allowing this scam to happen. Charudatta Deshpande,head of corporate communications,ICICI Bank said,We will initiate a probe. We are a huge organisation with millions of customers. Nothing can be said till the investigations are completed. The investigations are centred around images captured by CCTV cameras installed at ATMs used by the conman,who the police suspect is someone known to Kanitkar. The police said the conman knew not only Kanitkars personal details but also all information on his ATM card. Using these he cleared the bank verification process and got a new debit card issued and personally collected it from a city branch of the bank. He used the new debit card and started withdrawing money as well as shopping at various malls in Pune and Mumbai between January 8 and 12. By Monday,the total damage was in excess of Rs 7 lakh - which was debited from Kanitkars ICICI Bank account. Police sub-inspector S A S Sayyad,the investigation officer,told reporters that the conman first called the call centre of ICICI Bank some days before January 8. Posing as Kanitakar,the conman requested the call centre executive to change the mobile phone number on which the bank was sending transaction details through SMS. As the conman was aware of Kanitkars personal details,he successfully answered the questions put forth by the call centre executives for verification. Hence the bank replaced Kanitlars mobile number with the one submitted by the conman. Ultimately,the SMS alerts to Kanitkarsmobile number were stopped, Sayyad said. Police said that the conman also prepared a bogus driving licence carrying Kanitkars name and address. The conman applied for a new debit card. He submitted the fake licence as identity proof. The bank issued him a new debit card,which the conman collected personally. He further changed the PIN number of Kanitkars account, Sayyad said. Then he withdrew cash from ATM centers in Pune and Mumbai and also bought various items from shopping malls. The fraud came to light when Kanitkar failed to conduct transactions using his card. He approached the Aundh branch of ICICI Bank. He was shocked when the bank officials told him they had issued him a new debit card.
