HYDERABAD: A poor, elderly pensioner’s bank account was hacked and Rs142,000 was stolen from his account in a private bank situated at Latifabad Unit-11, Hyderabad, the pensioner claimed on Wednesday.

Mohammad Imran, a retired driver of the Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL), received a phone call from universal access number (111-111-425) on his own personal phone number on Tuesday.

He was asked to inform the caller about the bank account data, which he reluctantly shared. After a while, his account was hacked and Rs142,000 was stolen and transferred to three different names through three transactions.

He submitted an application to the bank concerned and reported to the office of the in-charge of the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Hyderabad cybercrimes circle with an application against the theft and for the recovery of the amount.

He appealed to high-ups of both the bank (HBL) and the FIA to recover his stolen money immediately as he was collecting the amount for the wedding of his daughter.

He said that he got a pension of Rs15,000 a month and he retired in 2008 from the OGDCL. He was a very poor man and a resident of Latifabad Unit-11, Hyderabad district, he said.

Sharing details, the pensioner told Dawn that he received the first call from UAN number printed on the bank’s ATM card at around 1pm on Tuesday and the caller introduced himself as an official of the bank head office in Karachi and wanted to verify his bank account details because of fraud nowadays.

The pensioner hung up after saying that he did not want to share anything.

After a few minutes, he got another call from another UAN (111-825-888) and the second caller introduced himself as the general manager of the bank and urged him (pensioner) to cooperate with the (first caller) official.

The pensioner checked and saw the same number on the card and after a while, he received the call from the first UAN (111-111-425) upon which he shared all details nervously. One after other, he also got phone calls from landline number (021-38402089) and mobile-phone number (0315-7548115).

Soon thereafter, the poor retiree received three messages of the transactions from the bank service number (4250) that first transaction worth Rs43,000 and two transactions worth Rs49,500 each were made and the amount were transferred to three different names (Mohammad Nawaz, Asif Ali and Mohammad Munawar).

At around 4pm, he went to the bank branch to make pay order for Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) for a metre, where a bank official told him that his balance was Rs226 as he made three transactions this afternoon.

Then, the bank head office in Karachi was approached and he was asked to present the application for the theft.

On Tuesday, he produced an application to the bank manager concerned and the FIA office for quick action. He claimed that the bank manager was unable to say anything about it.

The FIA sources said that recently hacking of one or two more bank accounts were reported and investigations were under way in Hyderabad district.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2018