Officials say district commissions across Tamil Nadu granted relief in more than a dozen such cases recently.
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Consumer forums have increasingly come to the aid of cyber fraud victims, holding banks accountable for deficiencies in services and failure to recover lost funds.
In one case, S. Muthu, 64, of Madipakkam, received an SMS claiming that his ATM card had been blocked for his PAN card not being updated, and was asked to update the details through a link.
Believing it to be genuine, he entered the information, during which an OTP was auto-filled. He also received a WhatsApp call from an individual, who, posing as a bank executive, verified his PAN details and name, and sent a fake confirmation email.
Growing suspicious, Muthu contacted his bank, which confirmed that the communication was fraudulent and froze his account at his request. He was advised to surrender his ATM card and apply for a new one, which he did the next day.
However, ₹11.58 lakh was fraudulently debited from his account within five minutes the following day. The bank claimed the money was siphoned through e-payment channels, and lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell.
Muthu later issued a legal notice seeking reimbursement of ₹11.58 lakh, and ₹10 lakh as compensation for mental agony. The bank, however, argued that the account had been unblocked on Muthu’s own request.
The District Consumer Disputes Redress Commission (North), presided over by D. Gopinath, ruled in Muthu’s favour, citing RBI guidelines that mandate banks to credit the disputed amount within 10 working days of customer notification, irrespective of insurance settlements.
The forum held the bank liable for failing to act promptly, and directed it to refund ₹11.58 lakh and pay the compensation sought.
In another case, Madhumitha of Anna Nagar was duped in an online courier scam, where fraudsters took out a personal loan of ₹15 lakh using her savings and withdrew ₹4.87 lakh — over ₹19 lakh in total — from her Besant Nagar bank account.
Despite her complaint within 24 hours, the bank froze only her account and failed to block the fraudsters’ accounts, enabling them to transfer the funds. The forum found negligence and directed the bank to refund ₹4.87 lakh and pay ₹2 lakh compensation.
Consumer forum officials said district commissions across Tamil Nadu granted relief in more than a dozen such cases recently. They observe that many banks continue to ignore RBI’s July 6, 2017 guidelines on unauthorised electronic transactions.
Published – November 09, 2025 12:23 am IST
