Hacking bank account means gaining access to someone’s bank account without authorization.What happen if someone hack your bank account and make illegal money transactions from your bank account? It’s scary right, but its bitter truth. Let me share one recent incident with you.
My relative bank account was hacked recently, the hacker made illegal transaction worth 60,000 Rs online. He got SMS – “Dear Customer, You have made a Debit Card purchase of INR 32,500 on 04 Jan. Info. IIN*www.ebay Your Net Available Balance is INR XXXX“. While getting this SMS, he was surprised and he immediately contacted bank authority. He made a complaint at the bank, that it is illegal transaction and it is not made by him. Before any action is taken another SMS received with transaction value worth 27,500 Rs and he was stunned.
He immediately asked the bank to block debit card so that further transaction cannot take place. He visited a bank. He was expecting a bank to repay this money similar to any other victim. The bank, however, refused to pay this money. Bank official said that transaction was done using his debit card number and 3D secure PIN it is a genuine transaction. As the transaction is already done with the legitimate credential bank cannot refund this money. He tried hard to convince bank official but no success. Bank redirected him to police.
He went to police station and filed FIR for this fraud. Police acted fast and contacted cyber cell to trace the hacker. They were able to trace the location however, the location was of different country and police was helpless due to laws and regulation. He is struggling yet to get his money back. This is in general observation that it is very hard to get money back in this type of hacking attempt. So, what to do if your bank account, a debit card is hacked or misused? Is it possible to recover money back?
How to recover money if your bank account, debit card is hacked misused?
You have a fair chance to recover the money back in case of fraud is taken place using online transaction. Follow steps given below.
- Act very fast within 24 hours from the date and time of the fraudulent transaction. Hacker/cybercriminal tries to do a maximum transaction or online purchase before you block your debit card or change your bank login details. So, the first step is getting your card block from the bank.
- Once your card is block next step is to reset your login password, pin, security answer. Verify your contact details like address, phone number are not changed by the hacker. Report fraud to local police station.
- Observe the fraud transaction details carefully. The SMS provided by bank carries information about the merchant or online website name where the fraud transaction is performed. In above case it is eBay.
- So, you need to contact fraud handling department or authority of merchant in 24 hours giving details about fraud transaction. You may need to prove your identity to convince merchant. No Merchant/website likes to process this type of transaction. They will block the transaction and revert the money back in the original account.
- Merchant/website shall able to do this only if goods related to this transaction is not delivered. It usually takes 24 hours to deliver the goods. If the good is delivered transaction cannot be reverted back.
- There are chances to get money back in case of online purchases, however if money transfer is taking place through PayPal or any other beneficiary it is very difficult to -recover the money back.
- Once you receive your money back, additionally perform the step of checking your desktop or laptop for a virus, rootkits or key logger using specialize antivirus tool. This tool could have been used to send your confidential information to the hacker.