SBI, Silchar Cyber Cell successfully recovers AUS Prof. Nagendra Pandey's Rs 9.90 lakh 

xState Bank of India’s Dargakona branch and Silchar Cyber Crime department have attained a major feat as they recovered Rs 9,90,000 from a fraudster. On August 7, 2019, senior professor of Assam University, Dr. Nagendra Pandey received a call on his mobile number which is registered with the bank. The caller identified himself as a bank employee and asked him for his net banking username and password. Getting trapped by the caller, Pandey gave away both username and password. Within a few minutes, the caller called again and asked for OTP and Pandey gave away that too.

A couple of minutes later, Pandey got a message on his phone that Rs 9,90,000 was debited from his account. Realising that he has done a mistake he immediately rushed to the Dargakona branch and lodged a complaint. There he met Rajarshi Bhattacharjee, scale II officer, State Bank of India who then immediately informed higher authorities by writing a detailed email at report.phishing@sbi.co.in.

“From the bank we had done all we could in ensuring that the higher authorities are aware of the incident. A few days back he had also lodged a complaint at Silchar cyber cell. After joint effort from the bank and SP office Silchar, we have managed to block the amount and yesterday it got credited back to professor’s bank account,” informed Bhattacharjee.

Informing about the tracking process, Bhattacharjee said that SBI corporate team in Mumbai got to know that an order was placed at Deep Enterprise, a store located in Andheri Mumbai. Mumbai Police then immediately rushed to the store and managed to block the shipment. The fraudster had already paid to the store so the money was blocked there which was then transferred back to professor Nagendra Pandey’s account.

He mentioned that this is a big achievement for the bank as we have only read about money being stolen so far. However, he again warned all the bank customers to not share any details over the phone at any cost, even if the person says he or she is the manager of any branch. “In case, if someone by mistake share any details and money gets debited from the account he or she must visit the nearest branch as soon as possible and report the incident,” said Bhattacharjee.

This is indeed a great achievement for Rajarshi Bhattacharjee, the bank and Silchar Cyber Crime branch. This also shows that if the bank and agencies work together then they can get the money back. While the professor got his hard-earned money back, it remains to be seen if others too get their money back.