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You never know what can happen to you if you leave your debit/credit card unattended. And a million times we extend our cards at hotels, restaurants, shops to pay, completely unaware of the repercussions of it being copied.

What happened at Delhi’s Farzi Café might give you a little insight on how people are being easily duped of large sums of money with their credit/debit card duplicates.

One of India’s most famous and hip restaurant chains, Farzi Café became the center of attention after many HDFC bank customers reported that transactions are being done on their cards at this restaurant without their knowledge.

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An employee of Farzi Café in Delhi’s Connaught Place has been booked for duping customers of Rs 6,03,500. The police came to know about the incident when HDFC bank filed a complaint. Police suspects it’s the case of card cloning.

“HDFC bank gave us a complaint regarding cloning of debit card of their customers. They stated that some transactions were made from their accounts without their knowledge, that too at Farzi cafe.”

The FIR lodged has the details of 13 customers who have at some point visited the café. Police told Hindustan Times

“He used to take the debit card with him on the pretext of getting the card machines and cloned it. He then used to secretly watch the customer enter the PIN number and later used that pin to withdraw more cash. He had done it over 8-10 times. He mostly did it on weekends when the pub used to be crowded.“

The man involved is absconding and the police is looking for him.

Cloning of cards can be easily done with the help of a machine which can be purchased online. What these thieves do is that they take your card away saying that they are just bringing the ATM machine or by making any other random excuse. Then they take it to their cloning machines and swipe it there.

The machine stores all the information of the card. Then they come back and watch slyly as you enter your 4-digit-pin to pay your bill. Later, they go back home to retrieve all the information and make duplicate cards out of it. They can swipe it anywhere, now.

So, please be very carefully before you hand over your card to any waiter, shopkeeper or just anyone who is going to take it away from your eyes, even for a split second. Let your friends know about it too.

News Source: Hindustan Times, The Hindu

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