Now Reading: ICICI Bank ordered to refund Rs 5.18 lakh in FedEx scam
-
01
ICICI Bank ordered to refund Rs 5.18 lakh in FedEx scam
The Nagpur District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ordered ICICI Bank to refund over Rs 5.18 lakh with 9% annual interest to a woman who lost Rs 6.93 lakh in a FedEx…
The Story in Brief
The Nagpur District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ordered ICICI Bank to refund over Rs 5.18 lakh with 9% annual interest to a woman who lost Rs 6.93 lakh in a FedEx parcel scam. The bank was also directed to pay Rs 25,000 compensation and Rs 10,000 litigation costs.
On 8 January 2023, the Gurugram resident received a call from a scammer posing as FedEx customer service, who claimed an illegal parcel in her name contained passports, ATM cards and drugs. Threatened with police action, she transferred money in four transactions to a scammer's ICICI account. The commission noted that both her and the beneficiary's accounts were with ICICI, and the beneficiary account showed suspicious high-value transactions of Rs 2.84 crore despite negligible regular activity, which the bank failed to monitor.
The Indian Opinion
Banks often argue that customers cannot cry foul after authorising a transfer via OTP, but this ruling reminds them that oversight does not end with verification. The scammer's account exhibited glaring red flags, Rs 2.84 crore in monthly flows against a declared turnover of Rs 40 lakh, yet no alarm was raised. The consumer commission rightly held ICICI liable for not monitoring its own beneficiary account. The real test now: will RBI enforce mandatory real-time monitoring for accounts showing such stark mismatches with customer profiles?
Sources (2): livemint.com, ndtvprofit.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
