Dubai teacher loses Dh9,000 in suspected ATM fraud
Nine ‘dubious’ transactions were made in one day in the US, claims victim
Dubai: A suspected bank fraud has wiped off more than a month’s salary of a Dubai school teacher.
Anu Zachariah, 53 who teaches in an Indian school, saw almost Dh10,000 cleaned from her salary account after nine dubious transactions were made in the US last month. Zacharia, who has never been anywhere else except to her native India and Qatar once, says she doesn’t recognise any of the transactions.
“It startles me because I did not use my debit card even once in January but my statement shows nine transactions. Clearly, someone must have committed a fraud on my account I am not aware of,” says Zacharia who moved to the UAE five years ago to be with her husband.
According to her statement, a copy of which is with XPRESS, nine withdrawals worth Dh9128.61 (three transactions of Dh395.98 each, three of Dh766.97 each and three Dh1879.92 each) were all made on Tuesday, January 6, 2015.
“My husband and I discovered all this four days later when we went to withdraw cash from an ATM in Sharjah. As soon as we keyed in Dh5000 to be withdrawn, we got a message from the ATM saying our request had been declined due to insufficient funds. Next, to our horror, we found out that we were left with less than Dh30 in our account,” recalls Zachariah, how the whole incident came to light.
Non-cooperative
“What angers me most though is how my bank has been absolutely non-cooperative and non-committal so far. They have only cared to receive a printed complaint from me and do nothing more,” says the high school English teacher who hails from Kottayam, Kerala.
However the bank in question, Bank of Baroda’s Dubai Branch responded to XPRESS by saying: “Based on initial investigation made by our IT department, it appears, prima facie, that this is a case of card Skimming and cloning. We are investigating the matter further and have been in contact with the bank where the card was used last on 23.12.14. We are also going to report the matter to the Central Bank of UAE. Going through transaction details, we are of the opinion that there is no fault on our part.”
Last month XPRESS carried an illustrative story on how to spot a ‘compromised’ ATM and the things to look out for while using a card inside such an ATM. Banks continually urge customers to exercise great caution while using cards for any transactions.
