Beware! Save yourself from cyber fraud – the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation ( IRCTC) has warned passengers, following a surge in the instances of cyber frauds, where fraudsters had conned unsuspecting customers – who cancelled their journey tickets – to share their sensitive bank details to get the refund amounts credited to their accounts.

“IRCTC never asks your personal banks details for any reasons. Sharing personal details may lead to frauds,” said the Corporation in a mail cautioning its customers.
In the mail, IRCTC advised customers not to disclose any confidential information related to their Account no., ATM card, PIN, TPIN, CVV no. & UPI details over phone/SMS/ e-mail, in their own interest, no matter how convincing / appealing such calls, mails may be.

“There are attempts to fraudulently withdraw money from your accounts by fraudsters,” warns IRCTC.

“IRCTC never makes phone calls, sends e-mails/SMS asking customers to disclose their personal or security information such as username, password, OTP, Card/PIN/CVV no, UPI Details for any refunds, TDR or any other case,” the mail further said.

Explaining that the ticket cancellation process is automatic and needs no human intervention, IRCTC further said:

• The refund process on e-ticket cancellation is transaction driven and fully automatic. Refund of a cancelled ticket is automatically processed as no human intervention is required in the refund process. The cancellation amount gets automatically credited into the same bank account of a user, from which booking was made and is normally completed within a week. Users are requested not to share their account details in any form, in whatever name they may receive a call.
• To avoid misuse of information by miscreants, users are requested not to share their booking and cancellations details on social media platforms.
• Users are also requested to be careful while searching Google and other similar platforms for IRCTC related queries as these platforms may contain many miscreant mobile apps and solutions aimed at misusing user credentials. Users should refer to IRCTC website for all ticketing, refunds and its authorised business partners related queries.
• Refunds of other IRCTC services like e-Catering, Air and Tourism etc. are also fully automatic and transaction driven with no human interventions. So, there is no need to respond to any calls regarding refund from whomsoever it may be.

So, remember not to share your bank details to anyone, if asked for so to facilitate the process of refunding the money on cancelled tickets.

• Financial Express
• 02/03/2020