DUBAI An Indian couple has lost over Dh30,000 in a suspected debit card fraud.
Zubin Vakil, 40, and his wife Anshu, 39, who held a joint account in the Bank of Baroda, claim their debit card, was ‘skimmed’ (see box) a month ago for seven transactions they never made. The withdrawals totalled Dh31,363.64.
“All that we had saved up over the years was gone in a flash because someone somewhere got hold of our card details and misused them,” said Zubin, a travel consultant who makes just over Dh9,000 per month. The dubious withdrawals, he said, were made just after his wife used her debit card for purchases at a garments store and a supermarket in Bur Dubai on the evening of July 16.
Police complaint
“We got a barrage of notifications from the bank later that night. Not able to recognise any of the transactions and fearing our card security had been compromised, we rushed to the nearest police station – Al Rifaa – to file a complaint,” added the resident of Meena Bazaar.
This week the couple provided XPRESS a copy of their bank statement showing transactions worth Dh1,966.60 to Dh6,226.94 were made at ‘Macy’s East’, a division of American multinational holding company Macy’s Inc in New York, USA.
“We have never been to the USA and we were right here in the UAE when the transactions took place,” says Anshu, who earns Dh2,200 as an assistant teacher at a Dubai school. “Yet we have had no help from our bank so far. There has been no investigation, no enquiry. Instead, we have had to dig into our emergency funds and lead a wretched life for no fault of ours.”
Sanjay Joshi, Bank of Baroda’s Chief Manager (planning, publicity and OPS) told XPRESS: “Our Dubai branch has already communicated the same to concerned customer that ATM card usage is the sole responsibility of customer. Bank does not own any responsibility for any claim or for the usage of ATM card by the customer. It is needful to mention here that we installed anti-skimming devices in all our ATMs and there is no matter of card cloning at our ATMs.”
The couple have now decided to approach the UAE Central Bank.
SKIMMING
Skimming is the act of illegally collecting data from the magnetic stripe of a credit, debit or ATM card and using the information - copied onto another blank card’s magnetic stripe - to make purchases or withdraw cash in the name of the actual account holder.
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