State Bank of India

BENGALURU: One wrong number left a State Bank of India customer poorer by Rs 49,500 and brought his efforts over nearly a year to nought at the consumer court. While the bank said he was not eligible for a refund as his complaint lacked specifics, the consumer court dismissed the case as one of human error .

The error in question was committed by Mahindra Kumar Yamanappa when he deposited the amount purportedly into his savings account through a cash deposit machine (CDM) in Kalaburagi in north Karnataka on July 18, 2017. Having made the deposit that afternoon, Yamanappa waited for the amount to show in his account.

When two days passed and no money was credited, Yamanappa approached his branch on SB Temple Road in Kalaburagi and lodged a complaint on the CDM complaint form on July 20. Apparently unaware of his mistake, Yamanappa cited his account number and sought to know why the amount was not being credited. He didn’t know then that this piece of paper would haunt him.

The staff of SBI’s Kalaburagi branch responded on August 30, 2017, after Yamanappa had made a second complaint sometime mid-August. By then, he had also gone to the police, suspecting his account had been hacked.

Little did he know that it was a lost cause. For, on August 3, 2017 – 14 days after he had informed bank authorities – Khan Shabab, an SBI customer in Adilabad in Telangana, swiped his card at an ATM, found an excess of Rs 49,500 in his account and wasted no time in withdrawing the entire sum.

In its response, the bank said the money had gone to Shabab’s account as Yamanappa had mistakenly keyed in 8 instead of 0 on the CDM. The SBI branch manager claimed that the bank authorities had written to the Adilabad branch on August 16 – 27 days after Yamanappa’s first complaint – and asked their counterparts in Telangana to retrieve the cash. That was that.

After four months of running around to retrieve his money, a dejected Yamanappa filed a complaint against SBI at the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Kalaburagi on November 28. In the litigation that ensued, he accused SBI authorities of failing to act in time to block his money though he had lodged a complaint within 48 hours of the deposit.

SBI’s counsel argued that the bank was not at fault since the customer had entered the wrong account number. Further, it was stated that Yamanappa, in his initial CDM complaint, failed to mention the erroneous account number and insisted that the money had been deposited to his account. The bank had done its duty, the counsel said, by informing Yamanappa over a month later about the mistake he had made.

The judge too chided Yamanappa for failing to mention the wrong account number and urging the bank to take steps to reverse the transaction. In its verdict on June 5, 2018, the forum dismissed Yamanappa’s case.

A banking official who would not be named said when a CDM deposit complaint is lodged, the bank can diagnose the problem using the transaction ID. “In Yamanappa’s case, had SBI staff acted swiftly on the initial complaint, it would have been clear that the deposit was erroneous and the money could have been blocked before the Telangana customer withdrew it 16 days after. Banking laws state that branch officials can request the receiving customer’s account to be frozen if an erroneous excess transfer is made,” the official said.

