An 80-year-old man who lost a few lakhs to scammers was in for a relief after a consumer commission directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to refund ₹6.14 lakh which he lost to cyber criminals. The commission opined that the bank had not blocked the account swiftly enough.
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission - III, Hyderabad, was dealing with a complaint filed by R.S. Sudhakar, 80. The opposite party (OP) was SBI, Masab Tank branch.
The complainant stated that in February 2022, he received a message which sought ₹10 and claimed that “SIM document verification” was pending. This was followed by a phone call from the same number. After he tried, but failed, to send ₹10 through another bank, the caller instructed him to install an app that gave remote access of his device. The complainant complied.
After receiving several text messages he realised that money from his bank account was withdrawn from his account. He texted, and called the OP flagging fraudulent bank transactions, and requested them to block the account, but the bank did not do so immediately. Till the time of the first contact with the bank, till 3.30 p.m., when the account was finally blocked, the complainant had lost over ₹14 lakh.
Later, the Reserve Bank of India Banking Ombudsman directed the OP to refund ₹8.07 lakh. However, citing relevant sections of the Consumer Protection Act, the complainant approached the Commission seeking a refund of the remainder.
For their part, the OP denied allegations and stated that they regularly request customers not to download “unauthorised apps”, and never disclose OTPs. Despite these requests, the complainant was negligent, opened the link, not connected to the bank, and allowed them to withdraw over ₹14 lakh by means of 16 different UPI transactions over which the bank had no control. The RBI Banking Ombudsman’s directions were complied with.
The Commission stated that the OP’s statement failed to convince. Had they quickly blocked the complainant’s bank account, he would not have lost large sum of money.
Relying on a National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission’s order, the district commission noted that the OP did not not place on record evidence that showed that the transactions were outside the OP’s control.
Directing the OP to pay ₹6.14 lakh, the Commission also ordered costs of ₹5,000.
