KOLKATA: Forty four odd customers of Canara Bank , who were among the firsts to have reported about the ATM skimming fraud last month, could heave a sigh of relief as they got back their lost money under the head ‘ATM fraudulent amount refund’ on Tuesday morning.Between July 29 and 30, the customers of the bank’s Gariahat branch, who were used to withdraw money from the ATM machine at Golpark — that was later found to be rigged — had complained of losing between Rs 2,000 to Rs 80,000 in multiple transactions by fraudsters.As the customers came in large numbers to the bank complaining about the fraud, the lid was blown off a citywide skimming racket, following which cops arrested two Romanians and an investigation into the process is under way.“When I had lost the money, I felt hopeless. That was the amount I had borrowed from a moneylender to invest in my fish business and suddenly it was all gone. I felt like committing suicide. Now that I got my money back, I have withdrawn the entire amount and would never keep a large amount in the bank anymore,” said Jugal Bar, a fish trader at Ballygunge market who had lost Rs 80,000.Like Bar, other customers too were relieved after getting their hard-earned money back. “I had almost started crying on losing Rs 40,000 at a go. My father and I had rushed to the bank and even had a heated exchange of words with the bank officials who had failed to give us any solid assurance. But after they called me in the morning and informed me that they have already started the process of refunding the money, I am relieved,” said Anindita Mukherjee, a resident of Ballygunge Gardens.Mukherjee’s next-door neighbour Kankan Roy Chowdhury, too, got a refund of Rs 4,000 but they are worrying about the Rs 30,000 they have lost from the SBI account that has still not been refunded. “I am more concerned about the money lost from the SBI account. The bank officials have not given us any time frame,” said Roy Chowdhury, a retired government official.The bank officials had started calling up the customers from Tuesday morning, informing them that the lost money would be refunded to their account and asked them to come over to the branch to update their passbooks. As the customers came in, the officials welcomed them with tea, snack and sweets.“Even we are feeling relieved to be able to refund the money. It was the first time ever we faced such a situation. The day they had lost the money, some customers were angry with us and some began crying holding my hand. Our entire team has worked hard to find a way out to refund the money. We didn’t even wait for the insurance company to refund the money to us,” said Sukumar Dafadar, the branch manager.Dafadar said they returned a total of Rs 12 lakhs was refunded on Tuesday on the basis of 44 complaints.Punjab National Bank was the first bank in the city to have started the refund process to its 34 customers on August 3. There are still certain customers with banks like Kotak Mahindra and State Bank of India who had complained of being duped of skimming during this period.