13 restaurants in debit card scam

VADODARA: Ever heard of a customer giving a tip of Rs 12,700 on a bill of Rs 34, 675 in a restaurant? The cyber crime cell has busted a unique scam wherein some city-based restaurateurs used to cheat banks worth lakhs of rupees by entering false tip amounts in the electronic data capture (EDC) machines.
The restaurateurs took full advantage of some loopholes in the EDC transaction systems to siphon off money from several banks.The crime branch has arrested three persons including two restaurateurs for committing the fraud.
The complaint registered at the cyber crime cell has names of 13 restaurants, most of which are owned by the two accused restaurateurs. The duo has been identified as Danbahadur alias Anurag Verma and Ashok Patel. Verma owns about four restaurants and Patel owns one. The third accused Hemant Panchal used to work with an agency that dealt in EDC machines. The case is being investigated by a team led by cyber crime cell police inspector Jatin Prajapati.
The police said that Verma and Patel took full advantage of some loophole in the banking transactions when it came to debiting tip amount from the debit card holders' account.
Investigating officials said that they are yet to receive any complaint from the banks. "We got an application from HDFC bank informing us about this incident. HDFC got recovery call for money from Allahabad Bank some months following which HDFC authorities realized that something was wrong. We are now trying to get hold of more accused after which we will approach the banks to know how they kept on crediting the tip money in restaurateurs' bank accounts," said an official.
The police have seized about 80 debit cards and nine EDC machines. One of the accused Danbahadur Verma used to carry the debit cards in his car. Police suspect that hundreds of such accounts have been opened by the restaurateurs in different nationalized banks.
The accused told the police that two waiters taught them the modus operandi and that they have been doing so since 2007.
From where was money debited?
If the restaurateurs swiped the debit card of their relative, the money should have got debit from the account of the debit card holder. However, what has foxed investigators is the fact that the banks did not debit the amount from the account of the holder. The restaurateurs used to siphon lakhs of rupees through this loophole with the bank not even getting the whiff of it.