53-year-old loses nearly ₹2 lakh in credit card fraud. Key lessons to learn from it

A 53-year-old man from the Rajarhat area of West Bengal lost nearly ₹2 lakh in two fraudulent transactions in favour of an online marketplace.

He told police that he received two SMSs intimating him of two fraudulent transactions - ₹98.5K and ₹98.4K on his credit card. The total amount debited from his card account was ₹1.97 lakh. Following this, his credit card was blocked.

Although this is an unfortunate incident involving a gullible credit card user, it is important to be careful to avoid anything like this happening to you.

These are some money lessons one can learn from it:

I. Refrain from sharing your credit card details on an obscure website. Stick to respectable marketplaces only. Some websites lay traps to get credit card details, which they can later use to commit fraud.

II. Never download any frivolous app sent via a link received from an unknown number. This could be a trap to access your phone data – text messages and photos. This leads to giving someone else complete access to your phone.

III. Even if someone claims to be calling from TRAI or a bank, do not share your credit card's CVV number or OTP. This could be a trap to carry out an illegitimate transaction using your card.

IV. Getting the card blocked at the slightest doubt is a wise thing to do, as it was done in this case. Also, if you raise an objection to a credit card transaction within 3 working days, you may be eligible for a full refund, as per RBI rules.

Notably, Reserve Bank ofIndia (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra announced on Feb 6 a new framework to compensate customers up to ₹25,000 for small-value frauds.

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