IRCTC Credit Card Fraud

Source: From the Times of India website, 27 April 2005

HYDERABAD: There have been as many as four cases of credit card frauds in the last couple of years where cheats have booked railway tickets online using a genuine person’s credit card number. But, sadly the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) still does not have a system in place to prevent these frauds. As a result, fraudsters stealing credit card numbers are having a field day.

On Monday two youths were arrested by the city police for collecting the credit card numbers of people at a petrol pump in the city and fraudulently booking tickets online. Ironically, it was IRCTC who lost huge amounts and the not the
genuine card owners.

"Some more security measures are required and they will be put in place soon," IRCTC managing director M N Chopra told The Times of India from New Delhi on Tuesday.

In an earlier case of credit card fraud in Hyderabad, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested an ex-employee of Indian Air Force, M Raja Rao for using stolen credit card details and booking railway tickets. The Cyber Crime Investigation of CBI detected that Raja Rao cheated people of several lakhs of rupees by making use of their credit card details.

Rao’s case was detected in March last year but till date, the website (irctc.co.in) does not have enough security measures to prevent misuse of credit card details.

This despite the fact that similar cases were detected in Delhi, Lucknow, and Mumbai apart from Hyderabad. Total nine persons have been booked by the CBI so far.

"The names of two more persons indulging in this kind of fraud have also been given to the CBI officials for necessary action," the IRCTC managing director said.

As of now, when credit card details are entered in the website the payment gateway of the bank mechanically verifies only the card number, expiry date, and amount available.


IRCTC joint general manager of railway ticketing J Vinayan said in the wake of online frauds, the IRCTC had asked the two network service providers Visa and Master Card for additional security features to prevent the misuse. All credit cards of banks are networked on either Visa or Mastercard or both.

Following this, a security feature called ‘Verified by Visa’ was introduced from February 15 this%2