In age of ATM frauds, skimming CCTV footage a key evidence

At a time when ATM frauds are on the rise, a recent order of the apex consumer court denying relief to a victim comes as a great disappointment.

The order has its origin in the complainant’s failed attempt to draw ₹15,000 from his bank’s ATM and the bank’s refusal to credit the amount to his account.

The bank’s argument was that it’s records showed the transaction to be successful and there was no excess cash in the ATM. So obviously the money had been collected by the complainant. The consumer on the other hand said he never got the money and the bank had not provided him the CCTV footage of the ATM, which could have proved his point and provided a clue to who took the money.

Surprisingly, the state consumer commission decided the case in favour of the bank, despite the bank’s failure to produce the CCTV footage. And while doing so, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission said: “Merely because CCTV footage was not available does not mean that the money could have been fraudulently withdrawn using the ATM card and PIN”. What it said next was even more surprising: “It is not possible for money to be withdrawn by an unauthorized person from an ATM” !

Unfortunately, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal

Commission too concurred with the verdict of the lower consumer court and said the responsibility of proving that he did not get the money was on the consumer and he had failed to do so. (Sandeep Vs Branch manager, Punjab National Bank, RP No 2298 of 2013, order of Jan 24, 2020)

But how can the consumer prove that he did not get the money, in the absence of CCTV footage? Besides, if the bank did not have CCTV coverage of the ATM, then it is guilty of negligence and has to take responsibility for it.

In order to understand the importance of CCTV footage in cases such as these, let me quote a couple of orders of the Banking Ombudsmen. In one such case, for example, where similar arguments were put forward by the bank, the Ombudsman insisted on seeing the CCTV footage and through it, found that the machine had dispensed the currency after a delay of one minute and 28 seconds and obviously, the consumer had left by then. The Ombudsman here held that the consumer is not liable for the fault of the machine and asked the bank to credit the disputed amount to the account of the consumer.

In another case, the complaint was that soon after the consumer punched the PIN, the ATM screen went black. There was no security guard at the ATM kiosk and a person watching the transaction from outside had suggested that the consumer call the toll free number as his card must have got blocked.

Soon after the consumer moved out of the kiosk, he got a message saying ₹20,000 had been withdrawn from his account using his debit card. In this case too, the CCTV footage proved that the customer was telling the truth.

Criticising the bank for not providing a security guard to prevent such fraudulent activity at the ATM, the Ombudsman asked the bank to make good the loss suffered by the consumer.

Thus in this age of ATM frauds, skimming and shimming, CCTV footage is an extremely important substantiation and consumer courts cannot ignore this crucial evidence.

As per the annual report of the Banking Ombudsman (20182019) complaints pertaining to ATM and debit cards have more than doubled in last two years. While in 2016-2017 such complaints before the Ombudsmen stood at 16,434, in 2018-29, they shot up to 36,539 .