Senior citizen loses Rs 10 lakh to hackers, court orders bank to refund amount

BENGALURU: An elderly

Bengalurean

who fell prey to hackers and lost Rs 10 lakh from his Axis Bank account was at his wit’s end when the bank refused to help him track the fraud. Finally, it took a city consumer court to cite an RBI mandate and come to the senior citizen’s rescue. On December 16, the court ordered the bank to fully refund the lost amount and also pay for the complainant’s court expenses.

When it all started

On May 15, 2013, C K Sreenathan, 65, of Promenade Road Layout in

Fraser Town

received an SMS alert that Rs 10 lakh had been transferred from his current account at Axis Bank’s J P Nagar branch through two transactions of Rs 5 lakh each. Realizing these online transactions had been completed without OTPs (one time password), the senior citizen rushed to the bank branch and lodged a written complaint stating his account had been hacked.

Sreenathan

also got an FIR registered with

JP Nagar

police. The bank’s branch manager ascertained that Sreenathan’s money had been transferred online to an HDFC bank account in Mumbai and an

Indus Ind Bank

account in Bhopal.

When even after a year-and-a-half years, bank authorities failed to retrieve Sreenathan’s money and cops too didn’t make headway, the senior citizen approached the Bangalore Urban II Additional District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum on February 07, 2015 with a complaint against Axis Bank.

While Sreenathan maintained it was a fraudulent online transaction where passwords and other security checks had been compromised, Axis Bank insisted that it was an authentic transaction done by Sreenathan and refrained from further probe.

A prolonged ordeal

Following close to three years of litigation, the judges pointed out that the two transactions were carried out with the customer not receiving any OTP, thus proving there was a security lapse at the bank’s end. The judges further slammed the bank authorities for blaming the customer for no fault of his and failing to investigate the fraud as per RBI guidelines. The norms say a customer has zero liability and it is the bank’s duty to probe any unauthorized electronic transaction in case of a complaint.

The consumer forum held Axis Bank liable for deficiency of service and not being able to safeguard the money of a senior customer. The judges ordered the bank to pay a full refund (Rs 10 lakh) to Sreenathan with interest from the day of loss, apart from Rs 10,000 towards his court expenses.


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