Digital systems may track down fraud: Banks

Bank customers who fell victims to recent electronic fraud may not have to worry about not being reimbursed as the banking system digitally records all transactions.

Officials from several banks say the system can also track down suspicious transactions that could be fraudulent.

The head of Bank Central Asia’s (BCA) Halo BCA division, Wani Sabu said all depositors who felt they had lost savings through unauthorized transactions could immediately visit the bank’s nearest branch or call (021) 500888 for further assistance.

“Our costumer service officers will then follow up the reports and inform depositors of any progress by phone,” Wani told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

“If the depositor has indeed lost money through ATM skimming, they will receive a full reimbursement in three working days.”

The banking system was also efficient at catching out fraudsters.

Wani said BCA had recently seen a number of customers who made false claims of missing savings, allegedly because of ATM scams.

To deal with such customers, Wani said the bank would invite the customers to review their complete transaction history and CCTV recordings that showed all their transactions at ATMs.

“Most of them finally chose not to come when we invited them to screen their CCTV recordings and a few who insisted on coming usually expressed remorse when their attempts at fraud were revealed,” she said.   

Bank Nasional Indonesia (BNI) corporate secretary Intan Abdams Katoppo and Sukoriyanto Saputro of Bank Mandiri said their banks had also been using online services to receive complaints from depositors about electronic scams.

After calling the bank’s call center on (021) 57899999, BNI customers could get a full reimbursement in the next two days should the bank agree that they were really victims of ATM skimming, Intan said.

“So, there’s actually no need for customers to report the case to the police because their reports will be handed to the bank again,” she said.  

The central bank estimates the amount of money stolen from hundreds of customers of at least six banks in recent electronic scams reached Rp 5 billion (US$550,000).

When the first ATM fraud cases surfaced in the media last month, a team of officials and officers from the National Police’s technology crimes desk was deployed to assist local police in investigating.

The police have arrested dozens of suspects in East Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, Bali, Yogyakarta and Jakarta for allegedly running separate organized syndicates to carry out the fraud.

The techniques used by the suspects include attaching scanning devices to ATMs that are able to read electronic data on ATM cards (also known as skimming), setting up fake hotline numbers to gather customer data, including their PIN, and selling customer data to other criminals.   

Last week, city police asked victims of the recent scams to be patient as they conducted a joint investigation with banks to un-cover the masterminds behind the crime spree.  

In the past month, the Jakarta Police have received 26 reports from customers of four banks, alleging that they lost savings through unauthorized transactions.