Hyderabad: Many account holders of Syndicate Bank in the city have lost lakhs from their account in the last four weeks. Bank officials suspect a database hack or a massive cloning of debit cards.

Around 22 account holders in one single branch alone, in Secunderabad, have lost money. After the devastated customers approached the bank the officials alerted their headquarters in Bangalore and have approached the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to find out what went wrong. The bank authorities have also decided to approach the Telangana police.

Techie M.V. Narasimha Rao who lost Rs 70,000 six days ago, approached the cyber crime police and lodged a complaint since he came to know that the bank would take more time to file a complaint.

“We lost money from my mother’s account. The money was withdrawn in three installments. The bank officials failed to alert us despite getting complaints,” said Mr Rao. Like Mr Rao four others have also approached the police.

The number of victims is expected to increase as neither the bank nor investigation agencies have not yet found out how the debit card details, including PINs, were stolen. “We have got complaints from 22 customers of Picket branch so far and we have started a rigorous process to stop further thefts and have alerted customers to change their PINs immediately. As soon as NPCI gives us a report on the case we would approach the police,” Syndicate Bank deputy general manager M. Prasad told DC.

Unlike most debit card frauds the crooks withdrew money from ATM centers using debit cards in this case, although the card owners still had their cards with them. This makes it clear that there was a hacking of the Bank’s database. The second possibility which officials are considering is skimmers (thin magnetic strips that can read and store data) in the bank’s ATM machines. However, when bank officials checked CCTV footage at the Picket branch ATM they could not find anything suspicious.

Syndicate Bank officials said that they have sent SMSes to customers asking them to change PINs immediately. They have also pasted notices at ATM centers with the same message.