Hyderabad hotbed of Credit Card fraud

Is Hyderabad India the new hotbed for Credit Card fraud ? As cyber law expert Sarbajit Roy's Hacking complaint reveals, this city in Southern India was placed on the international cyber crime map when VISA revealed the inner most security features of their credit cards to a local manufacturer of Public Call Office (PCO) booths.

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HYDERABAD: The Internet-based railway reservation racket that was busted on Monday may be just the tip of the iceberg. With websites lacking foolproof security features, cases relating to credit card frauds are on the rise. One can e-shop by just entering the credit card details as most sites do not ask any more questions to verify the genuineness of the person punching in the details.

As many as 60 cases of credit card fraud have come to the notice of the city police in the past few years. In one case, an IRS officer working with the customs and central excise department in the city received a bill from SBI Cards for Rs 13,493 in May 2004 for purchasing books online from WP-Service Wrap, Ampthill, Great Britain. She complained to the police that she had never placed an order for the books and that someone could have used her credit card details and bought the books online.

Similarly, an unknown person purchased e-Dating software by logging onto www.leopay.com in the name of A R Kulkarni, a resident of Dilsukhnagar. Kulkarni was shocked to get a bill for $199 for "purchasing the software.’’ He lodged a complaint with the police in June 2004 that someone had stolen his credit card details and made the purchase.

Though some websites ask for a few other details such as the validity period of the card, these are available on the credit card itself.

"To purchase even air tickets online, only credit card details have to be fed into the website," Cyber Crime Wing SP M Sivananda Reddy said. Only on a few e-shopping websites is additional information like one’s date of birth and address are sought.