Dinesh Upreti's Blog

Picture Abhi Khatam nahi hui mere dost...
Tuesday, January 15, 2008

It's long time since I posted some stuff here on my blog... After my last post "credit card fraud beware". Story didn't finish there.

First I got this comment on my blog after around 20-25 days of my post:

Milind pandhare said...

Hi Dinesh,
Can you call me on "985xxxxxxxxx" i have some information about your lost card.

After calling Milind I got to know someone has duped him/his friend at a restaurant called bamboo house near fc/mg road Pune using my card which got replaced at Rajwada on 24th Dec 2006. He was duped for Rs.50K/-.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

After around a year or so I got this comment on my blog.

Ashutosh said...

Dear Dinesh,
I am the same Ashutosh, and I lost my card at HOTEL SHAMIYANA, Karve Rd, Pune. The Experience of the Hotel manager and others was horrible, and yes they robbed rs 30000 using my card in One single day.

=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=

So the chain so far is xxxxxxxxxxxxx -> Ashutosh -> Dinesh -> Milind/his friend.

Now if some has been hit before or after this chain do let me know. That can uncover the scale of the fraud.

Interestingly police got hold of a guy after Milind/his friend's complaint. I was supposed to confirm if he is the same guy, but when I met that guy I found he was not as far as I remembered the guy. I claimed the same to the police and came out.

Who knows how deep has been this chain of fraud so far.

Moral of the story so far: Always check the card once you get it back after paying bills. A small negligence can cause you to pay hefty amount to the banks.

Some tips:
1) If possible keep a alert on your credit card that can sms you each and every transaction you do.

Best is to pay in cash :) I guess even debit cards are risky.

Posted by Dinesh Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1 comments

credit card fraud beware
Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Just want to share one of the fraud took place with me. Please spread this to your friends so that they can save themselves from this.

I went to one of the restaurant called RAJWADA located at Baner Road Pune for dinner. To pay my bill I used my XXXX credit card. The waiter returned me the credit card back. But I didn't noticed my name on the credit card handed over to me. I just saw its a XXXX gold credit card exactly the same looks as mine.

Next day I got a call from one XXXX call center agent that if I am doing transaction frequently on my card. Which I was not. I checked my card and found I have been given a credit card on the name of Mr. ASHUTOSH KULKARNI . I got my card blocked at that moment only.

I went back to restaurant thinking this card might have got mixed with Mr. Kulkarni's card during the billing. And he will also come to the restaurant to complain about this. To verify if Mr Kulkarni's card has been swiped there or not I went through the slips of bill payment in the restaurant through credit card. I found that from my card there were 3 transactions done same night my card was replaced. And one of those was signed by me for my dinner bill. But the remaining two were not signed by me.

At that moment only I realized that cards were not exchanged during billing this was an intentional move. And if my card would have been mixed while billing Mr Kulkarni must have paid his bill also. But I couldn't find any slip on his name. And the other two transactions which took place were after almost 3 hours after I went out of restaurant. So it was not a mistake.

After this I called the XXXX call center to know more about Mr Kulkarni's card. Call center confirmed me that the card which was handed over to me was reported as lost in June 2006 by Mr ASHUTOSH KULKARNI.

So it was all clear that card was replaced intentionally. And after my card was replaced. It was used to pay bill of two more customer. And the cash was kept by the guy whosoever replaced the card in the full chain from waiter to the cash counter. And even sign were not tried to copy from my signature on my card. This took me to surprise why merchant has not verified the signature on the card.

When I asked the restaurant authorities about the waiter who took my card for billing, they told me that the waiter work there on part time basis since last 2 nights and will come at night. But this guy didn't come back for his shift.

I was talking to the one of the restaurant authority yesterday and he told me similar incident happened in Kothurud also after incident took place with me. And 30K shopping is done on that card. I thought I was a bit lucky that bank called me. Even though amount he swapped on my card was not less. But considering my credit card limit 95K I feel I was lucky :( .

Please spread this word among your friends relatives. This can happen with anyone. Although it was my mistake at first level that I didn't check my name on card. But still someone else might miss it like me. And might get cheated like this.

Much more bigger credit card frauds are existing in market. Read this article "Kingfisher duped of Rs 17 cr in online fraud"
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/869992.cms

A snip from this article:
"The card details are mostly obtained from some restaurant, petrol pump or shopping mall employees who swipe the card, an officer added. "

This was even simpler then mine. When you pay your phone bill, petrol bill... Guy who is swapping the card just have to notice your card expiry date and the cvv. These are the details one has to fetch during online transaction. And credit card no can be obtained from your counter slip. Note all banks machine don't hide your credit card no. Only a few just give the last four digit only.

Much organize crimes are prevailing there. What we can do is to make people aware about those. So that they can take precautionary measures for those.

If someone has some contacts in some of the news paper please help me to get this publish in news paper.

Posted by Dinesh Wednesday, January 03, 2007 6 comments

Kashid Trip part II... My N70 way...
Friday, December 15, 2006

Kashid Beach-I

Kashid Beach-II

Its Mee... :)

Fisshhh......

Posted by Dinesh Friday, December 15, 2006 1 comments

Kashid Trip part I... My N70 way...
Thursday, November 23, 2006

Every one thirstyyyyyyyyyyyy...............

Some Dargaah near Murud Janjiraa

Some Dargaah near Murud Janjiraa

Muruddd Janjiraa fort..

Posted by Dinesh Thursday, November 23, 2006 3 comments

Fring!!! Its ringing..

Here come another great application for Symbian based phones called Fring. Its an application which work on 3G enable phones right now. Once you download and install fring on your phone you have access to the world of VOIP over your phone*. This application show your gTalk and Skype user list. And you can call them as you call from your desktop. So you can skype friends on the move. And if you have skype credit you can call any phone no as you call from skype. So talk to your friends without cost of your phone calls. Its more useful when people in you network also have 3G phones and using fring. Cool nee....

Here is my experienced so far using it on my Noika N70:
1) It shows gTalk(google talk) friend list quite fast.
2) Skype take more time than gTalk to show user list. May be skype login is talking time.
3) This even show you the mail or scrap alert which you get on gTalk.
4) Try calling one friend at tiwan. Voice clarity was pretty OK considering its on GPRS/EDGE not 3G network.
5) Application kind of getting crash at times but acceptable since its still in Beta. Looking forward for updates. Good work guys.

Overall its a good experience calling friend from phone but not paying for phone charges :)

*Need GPRS/EDGE