Amid reports of fraudulent withdrawals from bank accounts in Kolkata, a Canara Bank official on Wednesday said they have identified 37 customers who are victims of such criminal acts.The official said the total amount involved in the fraud was more than Rs 9 lakh at a branch here but promised that the bank will refund the lost amounts of the affected customers within a week."So far, 37 customers in our branch have complained of fraudulent withdrawals from their saving accounts. The total amount of fraudulent withdrawal is more than Rs 9 lakh," the manager of Canara Bank's Gariahat branch in South Kolkata said."We are updating the pass books of all our customers. We are taking written applications from those who have been victimised by the bank fraud. We are also asking them to fill up a bank insurance form. We take the responsibility of their savings in our banks. We ensure our customers get the amount they have lost within the next seven days," the bank official said.
Meanwhile, several customers in five other branches of Canara Bank in the city alleged that similar unauthorised transactions have happened in their accounts and lodged police complaints.The incident apparently involving a large scale bank fraud came to light earlier this week after more than 30 people approached the city police with complaints that amounts ranging from Rs 4,000 to Rs 40,000 have been debited from their bank accounts, fuelling suspicion that they had fallen victim to skimming devices planted on some ATM machines in the city.Police said they have received a large number of complaints at some police stations in the southern parts of the city and are probing whether it is a case of hacking of the bank's server machine."We received close to 50 complaints regarding fraudulent withdrawal of money from bank accounts. It needs to be identified whether all the people who lost their money used ATMs. We are also talking to the Canara Bank authorities to check whether their main server was hacked," a senior officer of Kolkata Police added.