The Freaky Online Transactions!

Internet horrors.

- Kalpana M Naghnoor

What! I was aghast! I had made only two online purchases with my newest credit card. Here was the statement that it was nearly maxed! Reading the transaction details, I could see my card was used by a clever hacker, on the same site, several times on different days. Yes, I had not also received the short message service prompts reporting the transactions, the hacker’s or mine. It was only later that I discovered, that the bank had the digits of my mobile phone number confused!

This happened then, when I was in the middle of a crisis, my mind diverted to my father-in-law, who was critically ill and admitted in the ICU. I immediately took a precaution and blocked the card but did not contact the bank about the fraud. There was just no time to email them the details. It was crunch time for me. When I did finally contact the bank, they said I should pay up the entire amount due to them, fraud or no fraud, and only then will they initiate an inquiry. So, I did that, but I needed three weeks to pay up the full amount. Also, I made them rerecord my mobile number. When I eventually contacted the bank again, they informed me that I was late by two days, I had crossed the limit of 90 days! So, there will be no inquiry. The moral of the story is there is a stipulated time, in which you have to act. No monumental calamity is going to alter that! Online darling is impersonal!