Dinesh Upreti's Blog

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.