Sir, I am a resident of Chennai city. I need your expert advice on how I should approach further with regard to a cyber crime incident that occurred in my account where I lost substantial amount of money in Jan 2022. The fraud beneficiary is also a customer of the same Bank. I’ve immediately raised complaint with the cybercrime, local police in Chennai and also with the Bank. The Bank and Cybercrime responded stating that money from the beneficiary account had been withdrawn immediately before the Bank put the account on debit freeze. The cybercrime is non responsive since then and the Bank responded stating that the transactions were authorised by me therefore the Bank is not liable and there was no deficiency of the service. However, in my complaint to HDFC, Police and Cybercrime I have clearly stated about the fraud beneficiary only and requested these competent authorities to investigate the issue and help me recover the money. I’ve responded back to Bank asking their KYC, tracing the customer, status of the account, their cooperation with the law enforcement but Bank has refused to answer any of my questions raised, in each response they gave incomplete, inaccurate information and vague response. I approached the grievance and Principal Nodal officer of the Bank but still the response was same. I suspect the loopholes in the Bank’s KYC and client onboarding process where they failed to maintain accurate details of the customer. Therefore, they are refusing to answer any of my questions. I had no choice other than reaching out to RBI Ombudsman team for further assistance on this. But I am not sure how far they would be helpful in this matter. I wanted to prepare myself for legal action against the Bank. I need your guidance on how I proceed legally against the Bank. The cybercrime and case registered with local police is still pending for close. I’ve lost hope on Cybercrime and Police in this matter.
