New Delhi: The quick-thinking and vigilant SBI staff successfully prevented a case of digital fraud at AC guards branch in Hyderabad. It was all because of bank officer Surya Swathi D and the branch’s manager Kumar Goud that a senior citizen was saved from being duped of Rs 13 lakh via ‘digital arrest’, according to an NDTV report.
The target of scammers was a 61-year-old child specialist, a customer of the bank for long. The senior citizen was informed by the scammers that he was under “digital arrest”. They told him not to tell anyone about it. The senior citizen then approached the bank and informed an associate that he wanted to break his Fixed Deposits and withdraw the money.
How it all unfolded
Swathi, the bank associate, could sense that the customer was tense and enquired from him why he looked so anxious. The customer didn’t reveal about ‘digital arrest’ in the beginning and said he wanted to withdraw the amount for personal work. But Swathi smelt a rat and took him to the manager. Kumar Goud, the branch manager, said that the customer told them that he was planning to purchase a property. Swathi was quoted as saying by NDTV that when the customer was asked where he was buying the property, the man said he had not seen it yet and this made the bank staff more suspicious.
The bank staff advised the customer to return with a family member. The bank manager said they refused to transfer the money for three days.
On one occasion, the customer visited the branch but avoided Swathi’s kiosk, as she had prevented the transaction the previous day and the man feared she would question him again. He went to another associate, but by this time, the bank staff had already been alerted about the elderly customer.
During his third visit, Swathi showed the customer an article from the PM’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’, where he pointed out that there is no such thing as a “digital arrest.” She then got him in connected to 1930, the national helpline for reporting cybercrime. The helpline informed him that others had also fallen prey to the same scam involving a “digital arrest”. After three days of harrowing torture, the elderly customer came to realise that he was being scammed and, so he hung up on the scammer.
The customer stated that during his multiple visits to the bank branch, he was on the phone with the scammers, who repeatedly tried to convince that he should not trust the bank staff.
What is ‘digital arrest’?
In digital arrest, cyber thugs confine the victims to their residences as they coerce them to dole out substantial amounts of money to absolve them of concocted cases. It is a new form of fraud where scammers inform the victim that they are under ‘digital’ or ‘virtual’ arrest and must stay connected to the fraudster via video or audio call. The main targets of such fraud are senior citizens and women who may not be very familiar with technology and are vulnerable to threats.
