Credit card holders need to be more cautious as frauds have truly gone global.
Andhra Bank, for one, has received complaints of hacking of its customers’ credit cards in Mexico.
“As a result, we have blocked card swipes (of our customers) in Mexico for the next three months,” Sanjay Ghosh, DGM -Credit Cards, Andhra Bank told
“We have received some complaints from customers about swiping of their cards in Mexico, even though they were in India. This must have happened due to fraudulent cloning of cards,” the official explained.
Andhra Bank promptly sent messages to its over 1.40 lakh card holders informing them that all transactions in Mexico have been blocked for three months.
“This is a precautionary measure as there were some stray cases earlier too. If somebody is visiting Mexico, they can approach us,” he added.
According to information available with Indian banks, data pertaining to 41 million cards have been hacked by fraudsters in the US.
A significant number of them could be of Indian card holders.
Other frauds Other banks, too, have faced similar problems in the recent past.
The salary accounts of Maharashtra police personnel being maintained by a major private bank, were hacked by overseas fraudsters.
According to data available with the Banking Ombudsman, cloning of cards has increasingly become a major concern for banks.
The Reserve Bank of India had recently made the use of Personal Identification Number (PIN) mandatory for all debit card transactions.