An Insider’s Job

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During my visit to a village branch, Pratapganj, I came across a strange case of fraud. One gentleman came to me and complained that someone had fraudulently withdrawn Rs.10000 from his account, and despite his written request to restore his money, nothing had been done by the bank.

Detection of any fraud had to be reported to RBI through the corporate office as soon as possible, while this case was one year old. I was not aware of this case. When I asked the Branch Manager, he told me that the customer had never come to him with his request during his tenure. I asked the customer to submit his application afresh and assured him of early resolution.

I got the necessary documents retrieved. Customer’s signature on the withdrawal form, through which the money was withdrawn, was slightly different from the specimen signature, but for further confirmation, I sent it to handwriting expert, who also reported that signature differed. So the customer’s claim appeared to be correct.

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But the question was whosoever had withdrawn money fraudulently, how could he access to his passbook, without which a payment (using withdrawal form) is not made? One of the possibilities was that the money was paid without passlbook, but it had to be mentioned on the form. That reference was missing.

My sense was that it’s the mischief of an  insider, either at the branch or at the customer’s home. I recalled the body language of that customer while talking to me. It had raised some suspicions in my mind.

I discussed it with the Regional Manager concerned and asked him to depute a senior officer of the rank of Chief Manager (CM) with a suitable brief for further investigation. I also asked the CM to have one-to-one talk with the employees and the customer to apprise them of the possible consequences. The officer came back with the customer’s written request withdrawing the case.

The fact of the case was that the customer’s son had stolen the passbook of his father and withdrew money by forging his father’s signature for his own consumption. The customer was aware of this fact, but even then he lodged a complaint, as one of his friends had misguided him that the bank would restore his money, as normally happened in case of frauds.

–Kaushal Kishore