Saviours... really?

1130 Hrs, received a call from HDFC bank on Sep 17, 2008. Receiving such calls is not a welcoming experience, thinking of it as just another random credit card call I was about to hang up when I heard the girl on other side talking about transaction on my debit card amused, I continued. She told me of some jewelry transaction the last day on my debit card worth Rs. 9000 to which I refused. She humbly requested me to check my Debit card which I did and to my surprise I found it was missing.

 

CRISIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY DEBIT CARD IS MISSING AND SOMEBODY IS SHOPPING!!

 

I requested her to immediately hotlist my card to stop further transactions and rushed to lodge a FIR. Unknown to, the police functionality in India, I reached Lajpat Nagar police station, which was nearest to me. Upon reaching there I was told to go to the Police station where I stay. Finding it ok, I chose to go to my bank first to get my statement of losses.

 

In an ordeal of finding the correct police station I had to go through 3 police stations and 2 chowkis before reaching Sector 39 PS in Noida.

 

HERE BEGINS THE STORY…

 

As opposite to the perception carried by me and a majority of people, Police officials were sweet to talk to, gave respect and treated me with hounour. I cant comment if that is the same with everyone as there wasn’t anyone around to compare with. I was asked to write a letter to local SHO detailing the event. I had a loss statement ready with the names of transactions made and for police to catch the culprit would have been really easy, only if they want.

 

While I was writing the letter, a police official asked me as to how to use a debit card. I was blown apart by this question as this was the same official who was supposed to search for my lost card and he doesn’t even know how to operate one?

 

He presented me with a purse of a lady named Ashita Dhar which was full of debit cards, credit cards, a Shoppers Stop card and a Jet Airways frequent flier card and her license. I had to sit and explain to him how does a card operate, to my surprise he even had a pin for an ATM in the purse, he insisted me to tell him the procedure of taking out money from the card. After understanding, he called one of his fellow officer for accompany him to ATM as he wanted to check how can he withdraw money, question is, was it FAIR?

 

Shouldn’t he have just gone and search for lady’s contact details, when I suggested him to do so he replied of having no time. Though he had time to question the will of the gentleman who handed over this purse to him ignoring his own will.

 

Had he wanted to help the woman, he could have had easily checked the address from driving license and handed over the card, but he was more interested in taking out cash from ATM and using the cards. How can I expect such a police to find my lost card?

 

A few questions again to all of you:

 

• If we find such a purse full of plastic cards, should we hand it over to police or try to give it ourselves directly? I would definitely not hand it over to police as I do not trust them post this incident
• Living in 2008, our police doesn’t know the functionality of a debit and credit card, how can we expect to solve them cases of such thefts?
• If this is the situation for plastic, imagine would police be able to help us reduce the loss of Intellectual Property, soft wares, music, phones etc,?

 

I as a common man refuse to trust our Police, would you?