Automated Banking Machine (ABM) fraud involving bank card transactions and credit card fraud are on the increase, senior officials at the Fraud Squad Unit confirmed yesterday.
The latest incident was reported yesterday where a commercial bank customer discovered just over $11,000 had mysteriously disappeared from her account.
Contacted for comment yesterday, head of the Fraud Squad Unit, Sen Supt Totaram Dookhie, confirmed there had been an increase in bank fraud cases over the past months. He, however, declined to comment further.
However, another source at the Fraud Squad Unit, who wished not to be identified, said it seemed the skimming technology used by thieves had gone “high-tech,” making it a problem for them (investigating officers) to make any kind of breakthrough in the numerous cases being reported daily by victims.
“There were breakthroughs in the past where we made serious dents in investigations like this and arrested people but now it has become even more difficult and this bank fraud and online fraud are not only a serious problem here in T&T but it is a global problem,” the officer said.
What was strange in this latest incident was that the victim was on vacation in the United States on the day her bank card was used by the scammers.
Speaking with the T&T Guardian yesterday, the woman, who wished not to be identified, said the particular account was mainly used for the depositing her salary and the payment of a loan. Her home branch is in Maraval.
She said she returned home over the weekend and went to an ABM machine (belonging to the bank she does her business with) to withdraw cash only to be notified that she had insufficient funds in her account. She said she went home and checked her account information online.
“It was while checking online that I saw about six or seven transactions took place on August 4. I was still out of the country then. Five withdrawal transactions took place at an ABM machine on Independence Square (belonging to another bank) and there was also a point of sale transaction recorded and the address was a telecommunications company on Charlotte Street,” the woman said.
“I did some further inquiry on the telecommunications company I saw in the transaction records and I got some telephone numbers but when I called it they were all out of service. I have the entire list of transactions recorded here,” she added.
The woman went to the Fraud Squad Unit in Port-of-Spain yesterday where she lodged an official report. She then took the report back to her home branch where she was told by bank officials that they would now launch an investigation.
Asked if the Fraud Squad had launched an investigation into her report, the woman said she did so at the unit yesterday and was told by an officer who dealt with her to contact them again next week to ensure an investigator was assigned to her case.
Attempts to reach the new president of the Bankers Association, Anya Schnoor, for comment yesterday proved futile.