Actor loses hefty amount of money in cloned debit card scam

Mumbai: An actor-cum-director was forced to cut short his trip after he found out of a suspicious transactions from his bank account using a cloned debit card.

Anand Balraj, who not only appeared in various Bollywood movies but also directed some others, lost Indian Rs 160,000 after his debit card was allegedly cloned and 16 withdrawals were made from ATM machines in Kherwadi and Vakola, areas in the Mumbai city of Maharashtra state.

The withdrawals were made during a period of 31 December 2019 to 07 January 2020.

Anand had to cut short his work trip after he came to know of the scam on January 08 and registered a First Information Report (FIR) with Oshiwara police.

Speaking to Indian media, Balraj said: “Normally, I check my mobile for transaction alerts when I use my card for online payments or to pay hotel bills. But this time I saw these text messages after a week as I was touring.”

“I cut short my assignments in Noida and returned to lodge a complaint as soon as I knew of it,” he said.

Balraj said that he found 16 transaction alerts on his phone ranging from Rs 10,000 to 30,000. “As soon as I registered a complaint with the nearest bank’s branch, they asked me to immediately return and lodge a complaint,” he said.

He was, however, unhappy with the attitude of the police meted out to him. “Police asked all unwanted questions,” he said adding that it was unfortunate to know how a common man suffers only just to lodge his complaint.

He further asked the authorities to run more awareness campaigns regarding the online frauds and find out ways to tackle them.