Scams, Frauds and The State

Not a single day passes off these days without the newspapers carrying some or the other sob stories of people robbed of lakhs or even sometimes crores of rupees from their bank accounts. Usually the stories how the victims receive calls from unknown callers with enticing news like a parcel for you awaiting  to be picked up from the Customs counter at the local airport after paying the duty into a bank account  mentioned or the news form a recently acquired friend  in a matrimonial site asking for a deposit in an account to clear his immigration obstacle or an SOS message from a friend stuck in a foreign land with his passport and purse stolen for an  immediate transfer to a  bank account so as to secure his release and return home. The victims are not the poor uneducated rural customers as one would think of anyone falling prey to such frauds or scams but highly educated city- bred professionals like advocates, doctors, business-executives, cinema actors and   society ladies. The stories end with victims filing complaints with the bank, or specially created cyber crime wings of police etc. and the usual warning to not respond to phone calls from unknown phone callers.

There are also types of cyber-crimes. With so much online use for buying, selling, enquiring, travel and entertainment booking and even medical appointment and data sources like Wikipedia, Google, the whereabouts of one’s lifestyles, food habits, health and hobbies choice preferences fora thousands of things of all of us are an open book for anyone to exploit our vulnerability. Many societies have therefore enacted laws and systems to prevent, detect and punish those committing crimes. This is not withstanding the State itself for security reasons using cyber technology to detect and punish terrorists, drug mafia, human trafficators.

With so much danger looming large on our right to privacy and the State’s duty to protect its citizens, a moot question arises “Are laws and intentions alone sufficient?  Apparently not as the following news item would suggest/

As per a news item “” Bank not liable for following orders sent via hacked email” in The Times of India Mumbai dated16th Sept, a compliant by a Bank customer alleging negligence and deficiency in service and due diligence has been kicked about like a football between the Bank, Ombudsman, the State Consumer Commission and the concerned govt agency for cyber-crime. The Bank maintained that the party most responsible for causing the payment to be misdirected must bear the loss. Th Ombudsman did not accept the complaint for lack of details. The State Consumer Protection Commission considered it not as a fraud arising out of negligence or deficiency of service or of due diligence and interpreted it more as a cyber -crime fit to be dealt with by the Government agency for cyber-crime under the relevant provisions of the cyber law.

 We poor citizens are not concerned with such hair-splitting whether the loss to us is because of fraud or scam or our vulnerability or negligence. We want immediate corrective action for compensation of loss and fixing responsibility on whosoever committing negligence.  

 Today one talks of One Nation, One Everything but no one talks talk about   One Window for Victims of Fraud...

Is anyone listening?