Having realised that they had received double credits, some account holders of SBI made several online purchases from Flipkart and cancelled their orders later.

What happens when you cancel an online order as per the terms and conditions of the retailer? Your money usually gets refunded within the stipulated time. However, what will be your reaction if you get double the amount you paid? Won’t it be like a Double Bonanza for you or something your never imagined?

A similar thing is reported to have happened with some account holders of the State Bank of India (SBI). In fact, according to a report by the DNA newspaper, as many as 39 account holders of SBI – spread across Mehsana, Patan and Ahmedabad districts of Gujarat — were pleasantly surprised some time back when they learnt after cancelling their online transactions with online selling platform Flipkart, that the bank has returned them double the cancelled amount. The account holders received one credit from Flipkart on the day of cancellation of the order and another credit in their accounts from the bank after two-three days of the cancellation.

Having realised that they had received double credits, some account holders made several online purchases from Flipkart and cancelled their orders later. According to the report, a large number of those account holders were students who also informed their relatives and friends about the same and advised them to follow the same modus operandi. This way SBI is reported to have lost more than Rs 7 crore from 1,090 transactions in 39 accounts when the incident happened last year.

The bank is now treating it as a fraud case. Its preliminary probe has revealed that “customers received double credit from ATM switch centre when they cancelled online transaction,” according to the report.

Whatever be the case, it was surely a windfall for some of the SBI customers. However, what happens with them now remains to be seen!