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-   -   Fraudulent transactions in the name of Kingfisher airlines in my Creditcard statement (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/58771-fraudulent-transactions-name-kingfisher-airlines-my-creditcard-statement.html)

There are fraudulent transactions amounting to around 70K in my credit card statement I received today. All these transactions are in the name of Kingfisher airlines Ltd. I have reported the fraud to the bank and blocked the card as well. The next step is to file a complaint in the local police station as per the advise of the cyber cell police station.

I am really worried as the amount involved is really huge.

What else do i need to do? Please advise.

Whatever you do, wherever you go, correspond everything in writing. If you have just called up your credit card company to complain, make sure you write to them as well (E-mail and Post) and quote your reference number of the call.
These people may sometimes act smart to say that your call was late etc.

Just out curiosity, can we know which bank's Credit Card is it?

Edit: Call up Kingfisher and tell them what has happened. Also, let them know that you have raised a dispute with your credit card company and also lodged an complaint with the Police. They should be aware!

Don't worry about the money. That would be safe since you did not authorize the transaction.

However be prepared for lot of paperwork. And as mentioned earlier, maintain a paper trail of EACH conversation.

Signed authorization is not really a must for the transaction to be cleared. Also, at most establishments the person doing the CC transaction *does not tally* the signature with the signature on the card. Because of this, some of the banks now automatically send an SMS to the registered mobile phone within minutes of the transaction.

1. Try to recollect if you have revealed your CVV number anywhere, say in an online transaction?
2. Did you give a xerox copy of your card (front and reverse sides) anywhere, say as a standing payment instruction?
3. Do you recollect anywhere that you gave your card and it came back after an unduly long time without you knowing where it went?

Usually if you contact the CC company in time, and can prove you couldn't have done the transactions, they reverse the transaction in your account. INSIST on a reference number for all your complaints and document / confirm verbal conversations.

A 70k transaction should have triggered a SMS from you bank. Maybe you have not registered or something! Bad luck.

Apart from the suggestions above, I reckon the KF transaction means that it must most probably be a flight ticket. So, that means that KF, if required, can pull out the transaction that was made with this card and hence the name of the passenger.

Hope it gets sorted out. 70k is not a small amount! And all the best.

It is a Citibank credit card. I have written down the reference number of the dispute I raised with the bank and called them again to re confirm. Now as you suggest, I will send an email with the reference number.

I called up Kingfisher and they asked me to send an email with the details to guestcare@flykingfisher.com.

+1 to this ! Get Kingfisher Airlines to reveal all details of the transaction and thereby trap the culprit !

It happened as a series 19 transactions varying from 4K to 10K over a period of 22 days. So no SMS alerts.

Even I assume they are flight tickets. Anyways I sent an email to Kingfisher airlines to cancel all the transactions from my card number as soon as possible.

I assume all the frauds happened online as I have never given my card to anybody.

I am going through all my previous statements to recollect anything that you pointed out had happened.

Oh no! Surprising. HDFC and ICICI send an SMS for ANY transaction, even if it is 250/-.

Did you receive a renewed card recently? Online transactions need CVV. Online ticket booking is the favorite modus operandi of credit card fraud in India. There have been instances in the last 1 year where courier boys have either whacked off or surreptitiously taken xerox of cards and misused them. Air tickets are booked, usually by someone working in a small time travel company for *genuine* customers at a 'discounted price'. Transaction trace-backs have led to nabbing of the culprits.

You need to work quickly. If you get the transaction details (there are a lot more details recorded than what you see in your statement) from the CC company to KF, they would be able to trace where the tickets were booked from, and that can lead to further clues.

Thats the job for the Police. So file an FIR with the Police. Hopefully, they have a cyber crime cell in your city. I recall reading about a similar incident few years ago. It was a travel agency and involved kingfisher airlines tickets. In that case, people using those tickets had paid for it, but the travel agent came up with this scheme to earn more than the usual 1% commission.

AFAIK,You have to produce the credit card,at the counter.
If the paying party is not travelling then atleast a xerox copy is required,how come the airlines didnot checked this.

Its a long process to get the money back. Same thing happen to one of my friend too 3 yrs back. One single day 4 ticket to MUM-BANG. Unimaginable, Right !!! I have also heard this fraud many a time.
This incident is common while u r booking your Air ticket online/ through call center.

No, the process to credit the consumer's account is not long, as long as it is established that the transactions were fraudulent. Usually the credit appears in the next month's statement.

8 years back, I had paid for my stay at a London hotel (Premier Inn at Wembley) with a StanChart card at the time of checkout. When I returned, I was shocked to see two transactions of about UKP250 each at a Central London store. The transactions were made at 1145, whereas I had flown out of Heathrow on a 1030 flight. When I pointed this out to StanChart, they quickly reversed the transaction immediately without any argument. Later I recollected that the counter lady at the hotel had gone into the back room with my card for a couple of minutes, enough to take an impression on a couple of charge slips (online was not so popular then). Signature> Like I said before, most people don't cross-check.

Because of such incidents most airlines require that the passenger show the credit card if the credit card belongs to the person travelling or show a photocopy of the credit card (both sides) and often with a letter of authorization from the credit card owner. Check with Kingfisher if they have such a policy and if they have collected the photocopy and authorization letter if the tickets are already used. This will also help you.

Yes there is a cyber crime cell in the city and I have contacted them. They told me that credit card misuse, fraud and theft will not come under them and I need to file an FIR with the local police.

I am not sure whether they were telling me the truth or trying to pass it on to someone else. If anyone knows anything more about this, please let me know.

I am not sure whether anybody traveled using these tickets. But in all possibility, it might have happened as they wouldn't have waited for long. In that case, there are 2 possibilities. Either these miscreants had a copy of my CC or they somehow escaped the airlines's verification.

I never used this CC to book an airline ticket. All these bookings are done by someone else who had stolen my CC details somehow.

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