How to secure your bank account and cards from fraud transactions.

Ever got into a trap of fraudulent transactions from your bank account?

Do you have faith and believe in yourself and on the service provider that you will get OTP/verification before a transaction can take place from your bank account or payment apps (which you keep loaded with lots of money)?

If yes then you should give it a second thought.

Because one day you might get an SMS/Email mentioning a transaction successful for XXXXXX amount, even without any OTP/calls/verification, even if you did not initiate that transaction and you keep wondering how it happened and then you have no idea what to do?

So let’s see different ways with which you might compromise your bank/card details unknowingly and then to see what action you can take at best in case you get into this trap.

1. Do not show your cards to anyone:
   Don’t show your card to someone you can’t trust.
   Because that person can take a picture or memorize your card details to use it for fraud transaction.
   
2. Do not take out your card or use your card details in public places:
   Don’t use your card to load money in your online payment apps in stores/public places or for payments in any stores.
   Better to have a very minimum use of that. (Remember you are under CCTV surveillance).
   
3. Scratch/Remove your card number and CVV number:
   As mentioned in above 1st and 2nd points, It’s not possible to avoid using the card every time, so better you scratch your card number’s few digits or at least the CVV number.
   Note: Remember those numbers or write it somewhere in an encoded/patterned format so that you don’t lose that or else the card will be useless to you). You can scratch or color your cvv number like below so that no one can see it.
    
   
4. Do not save card detail on online ordering/shopping apps:
   Many Apps are now very famous to be commonly used by almost everyone for online payments/recharges.
   While making payment,  It either gives you an option whether you want to save your card detail for faster future payments or the app will automatically save that information by default.
   And you are so busy in today’s fast-moving world that you do allow the apps to save card details because you want to make future payment process easy and faster without providing that information again and again.

   But there are apps which do not allow you to even delete those card information from their App’s setting.

   https://twitter.com/sagrawal003/status/1062311918310805509https://twitter.com/sagrawal003/status/1088772100956082178

   If your card information is saved in online payment apps and even if the app is 100% secure, you never know when and where that app or your detail will get compromised in future and then boom. It’s you who will lose the hard earned money which you will be more concerned about.

   So while making any payments, better to not give permission to save your card details in your payment apps.
   
   

5. Install only trusted/official apps on the device:
   Nowadays there are many apps are available on app store and we just download it based on rating or whatever shows on the top of the list.You should make sure to install only those apps which are created/uploaded by the company or authorized organizations.
   
6. Do not give device data access permission to all apps:
   Many apps on our device ask for gallery, media, contacts, SMS permission but do not give access to all those data blindly.
   check if that app really needs access to the data it is asking permission for.

   From my personal experience, I had installed one app which was related to gallery/photos but that app was asking permission to access contact and SMS before I can use the app. Why on earth that photo app needs access to my phone contacts and SMS. and even if it needs permission, then why it is mandatory by the app without which I can not use the app.

7. Do not save any private details on online storage:
   If you are using online storages to store your card details, passwords, personal private data for easier access from anywhere then better stop doing that because you never know how and when someone will hack data and use it. (or store in some encoded/pattern format if you have no other choice)

   Just a simple example: You log in to your Gmail account on any public device or anywhere else except your device and then forgot to log out from there. Then whoever else has access to that device can get all your data if you have your personal data stored in google drive.

8. Do not share bank/card detail to anyone on phone calls:
   It’s very common now to get a call from someone claiming representative of a bank or from a service provider you are using their service and then you are being asked to share card details to reactive account/card or your service.

   No authorized/valid service provider will ever ask you your bank card detail or account details over phone/email/SMS.
   If that happens to you, just drop the call because that is a fake call through which one will get your data and use it.

9. Do not blindly use any keyboard on your device:
   There are many fancy keyboards available on the app store which we download and use for advance fancy features.

   But be careful from using those keyboards as those may collect all the text that you type in on that keyboard, especially keyboard which are not authentic and authorized one and hacker put those for hacking your data.

   Even “Gboard” keyboard of Google gives you a warning when you enable it saying that it may be able to collect all text including your personal data such as passwords and credit card numbers. See the screenshot below.
   

10. Careful from any links from social media or mobile chatting apps:
    Do not open any links from email/chatting groups/SMS which claims to give you offers by asking you to enter bank account/card details.
    There can be cases where those links are fake and hacker wants to get your data on your device once you open the link.

    Hacker can hack your data by running some script on their website link which you opened on your mobile or redirect you to a bank website which you use and ask to enter card details to claim the offers or something.There are many ways to hack your data so you better open only those links which start with https or you think is a valid website link.

11. Enable Biometric Locking for your Aadhaar detail:
    Now everyone has Aadhaar card and everything about you and your bank detail are linked with your Aadhaar number.
    And it’s now possible to transfer the amount from your bank account to any bank account if someone has access to your fingerprint and details.

    https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/auto/this-week-in-auto-tata-motors-launches-harrier-maruti-unveils-new-wagon-r-3438861.html

    https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/otp-authentication-better-than-biometric-for-aadhaar-verification-delhi-high-court/articleshow/66465317.cms.

    So if you do not use your fingerprints for any Biometric operations in your day-to-day life, better to lock that from Aadhaar website. https://resident.uidai.gov.in/biometric-lock.

    It provides an option to lock and unlock your Biometric permanently or temporarily for 10-15 minutes.
    

Of course, there are many many other ways of hacking your data, but above-mentioned points are the minimum security level you should remember and apply it.

With these few tips, you can do whatever you can to make your data secure but even then you might become a victim of fraudulent transactions if your day is a bad day.

So if you get into a trap of fraudulent transactions then below are the minimum things you should do at the earliest to report this case to your respective bank account.

1. Call your bank’s customer care number immediately, report about the incident, ask them to block your card and freeze account temporarily if that is necessary.

   Or login to internet banking, block your card from there. [Call customer care to report case anyway even if you do this]
   (Better to remember where these options are present in your I-banking so that you can use it immediately when needed)

2. Submit documents to the bank within 3 days of the incident:
   1. FIR copy if the transaction amount is more than 20,000/- (check the amount limit in your respective bank’s website)
   2. Customer Dispute Form with data filled up. (Every bank has ‘Dispute form’ so download that from the internet or ask your bank to give one form)
   3. Incident letter. (A letter to bank mentioning detailed information of the incident like when and how it happened and what all action you took so far from your side)
   4. Can include scan copy of the transaction SMS/statement for reference.
3. Your bank will then report this to their fraudulent handling department and will give you acknowledgment receipt.
   Acknowledgment receipt can be a copy of your submitted dispute form with bank stamp and signature with acceptance note.
4. Also, send all the documents submitted and details via email to respective RBI ombudsman of the city where your bank account branch is present (where bank account opened or transferred).
   https://www.rbi.org.in/CommonPerson/english/scripts/againstbankabo.aspx
5. Once the above processes are completed, all you will need to do is to wait for at least a month or two (max 90 days) before you get status from your bank about the report.

   You, better keep asking the bank, customer support, RBI’s ombudsman about the status every week, can also follow up with them on their social media page.

6. It depends on the bank and RBI to take appropriate action and decide whether you will be getting your money back or not.

I hope the above post will give you some idea on how you can secure your bank/card information as much as possible from your end.

Happy Securing your Data !!!