SBI acted upon a fraudulent email purportedly received from me and created an Over Draft of Rs.70 Lakhs against my NRE fixed deposits. All the documents related with loan and transfer of money to China (Rs.60 Lakhs) was forged. The Bank has not done any personal validation either calling me over phone or writing a follow-up mail, before initiating such actions. In addition, the Bank has not activated the KYI norms (SMS or Email Alerts) stipulated by RBI and I did not get an opportunity to realize the happenings in my account.
I’d reported the issue to the Bank for its action on July 17, 2013 and filed a police complaint on July 26, 2013. The FIR was filed by Coimbatore Cyber Crime Police on Aug 10, 2013.
I also had filed a complaint with Banking Ombudsman on July 26, 2013 for attending to my problem.
Following is the reply I received from Banking Ombudsman, Chennai. I do not understand the message – whether my request has been completely rejected or being dealt by Department of Banking Supervision.
1. Please refer to your captioned complaint registered with us on July 26, 2013.
2. In this connection, this Office is informed by the bank that the police case registered by you is presently resting with the cyber crime police. It has further stated that investigation is in progress.
3. As the cyber crime police investigation is underway and the subject matter of your complaint is outside the ambit of the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006 (Scheme), we regret to advise having ‘rejected’ your complaint and that the same stands closed in our records under clause 13(a) of the Scheme, which reads as under:
“The Banking Ombudsman may reject a complaint at any stage if it appears to him that the complaint made is not on the grounds of complaint referred to in clause 8”.
However, a copy of the complaint has been forwarded to the General Manager, Department of Banking Supervision, Reserve Bank of India, Chennai-600001 (email Id:dbschennai@rbi.org.in) for necessary action, if any.
4. Please note that a complaint closed under the above clause is not appealable under the Scheme and that you are free to approach any other grievance redressal fora, as you deem fit, to redress your complaint.
5. This is issued as per the orders of the Banking Ombudsman.
Given the circumstances, while the police investigation is still on progress, please advise the course of action available for me. I personally feel that Banking Ombudsman should have considered the non-complaint way of doing business by SBI and caused a loss of Rs.70 Lakhs to customer as a primary basis and investigated the case for a closure.
