Giri Nair
Mystery of the misused credit card
Mystery of the misused credit card
Elementary my dear Watson!!
I hate credit cards!!
My family sat comfortable as well as eager and ready for the next story. It had been a marathon of storytelling but they were not bored, but I was☺. I smiled and said “This was also in the Nizam city of Hyderabad. It started with my favourite statement.”
““I hate credit cards! Or rather the credit card banks. They are unscrupulous and resort to all illegal activities. And the bank from whom you took is the second worst" I exclaimed as Rajesh showed me his new platinum card from AXCY Bank. “Well if you use wisely it can be fine.” Replied Rajesh and laughed. I was getting ready for travel and so was Rajesh. He was going to Korea and I was going to Europe for a client who had operations in 4 countries. Rajesh was travelling for 6 weeks and me for 8 weeks. If the phase was successful we would both be travelling within another 6 weeks back to same clients for the next phase.””
““Rajesh laughed and said "Ok buddy see you after 2 months, safe journey and best of luck" he said. “You too bon voyage and bon chance" I said because Ramya the French speaking upstart was standing behind me. You remember Ramya right? She was there when I was in Eastpro and in that 6 month trap of an engagement in Australia, the one which happened immediately after our marriage Shee.”” I reminded Sheeja.
My family laughed they knew Ramya she had come across me while I was in another client in Australia, another continent as part of an engagement from my next company Easpro. It was quite an experience and it was after marriage so Sheeja also knew about her ☺
But I see I am starting off badly as usual. Let me explain some background it was the year 2005 I was in my 5th Job in less than 10 years of IT career. This time I was in consulting for the Truth systems ☺ Yes it is famous for the untruths that was done by the owners and later taken over and merged with the telecom IT giant Tele Amarendra ☺ I was reporting then to Sadhu who was the second in command to IT consulting in Truth systems.
Essentially I was living out of a suitcase and my landlord used to tell me I was paying rent and he was uncomfortable collecting it as I was hardly there even 40% of the time. Most of my travel was around Asia Pacific, Middle East and Europe. So Rajesh was in the other consulting services which addressed the non IT related process consulting like business help desk, BPO, non IT service management etc
They also addressed things like supplier sourcing, vendor management etc. Rajesh’s team was growing in prominence and revenue. Rajesh reported to Mehmood Sir who was one of the best leaders I ever worked with.
Ramya was another person in my team and she was a girl who demanded and got prominence by her looks and Madam Prameela was a vocal ladies lib advocate and Ramya took advantage. Also people who were roving eyed liked to have her company☺.
I continued the story telling “I was supposed to travel with her :( She was a bigger star than the Bollywood/ Hollywood stars and commanded all sort of things and attentions. To top it off she was tall and fair so all the typical Indians thought she was beautiful and she knew how to take advantage of such fools :) I hate such women also!!”
Sheeja laughed and said “The feelings are mutual I am sure, those type of girls hate you also for not tolerating and bowing to them”
We all laughed. My friend and colleague Renny used to say when it came to finer feelings and romance he did not consider me anything human but a stone statue. Whenever they see a beautiful girl pass they would comment and I would just notice and ask what and where. So they nick named me stone heart ☺ I smiled remembering that ☺
Anyway I was travelling with Ramya and another lady from our team Meera. Meera was mother of 1 kid but liked consulting and her family was very supportive. She was from a very conservative Brahmin background but still they were ok to her travelling alone and everything. She was a gem of a person and we became good friends, in fact great friends.
2 months after
“After a harrowing 2 months with 2 ladies I had returned. Actually only Ramya was the headache. Those details of the experience will tell some other time and will be more time consuming than this story. To put it in a nutshell Ramya did things ranging from keeping her stock of food intact while consuming Meera’s food stock, to making Meera waste her phone card while keeping her card safe. It progressed to the worst, her disappearing half way through the project and not even passing on the notes of the work she was responsible for. She did some real painful things.” I concluded.
“Meera you all know her she also was with my last company Easpro and in Chennai also when we were setting up and running the ODC. Coming back to this story, work was satisfactorily completed across 9 cities in Europe of which 4 cities were mine as I was the only male. So after roaming around in Europe I was back in India. In fact there was a small crime in Paris that I will tell later as another story it was not a big mystery.” I was interrupted by Sheeja.
“What mystery, just a hint please” requested my wife.
I sighed and explained “Someone stole from Meera’s room a few things which were curious and not of value that was the surprise. Anyway that is for later and trivial. In this case I was back in Hyderabad after Germany, France and Austria trip. I was a routine man, on the third day of return I would surrender my laptop and 5th day will settle my foreign exchange.” I paused to sip some water.
I told Sheeja “You know how settlement involved a complicated process of submitting all bills for acceptance as a first step. Then totalling of the bills and that total is then adjusted against foreign exchange given before travel. returning the balance if expenses were less than advance given or collecting from company if approved any excess spend more than the advance given during start.”
I paused to recollect the pain of the settlement process and then continued “So I had no time to chat with any one for the first 2-3 days. Since I never trusted any company I always made sure I had copies of every bills and I always followed every step till I received confirmation that all stakeholders approved, accepted and closed the entire travel bills loop. Nowadays with scans possible that much headache is not there☺.”
“It was during the second week only I had time to sit with Rajesh, he had returned 3 weeks back and had been on a week’s leave and just came back to office. We greeted and sat over a cup of coffee and me with my favourite Maggie tomato soup and we swapped stories and laughed. He commiserated with me on my troubles with Ramya and told me he had heard similar stories from others who had problems with her.” I continued.
““He added more misery for me and said being alone he enjoyed and had a gala time roaming, shopping and boozing. I laughed and said “Be careful your settlement will be rejected if you act so happy.” We both laughed and finished our break and went back to our work””
I remembered the sequence of events for a minute and then started telling my family how things started going wrong on that very Friday afternoon. I had more or less a quiet peaceful week and I was thinking this had been a peaceful week and feeling happy for that. I was thinking it will be a good peaceful weekend when as we see in movies, as usual the calm and peace went for a toss when everything exploded with a loud shout.
AWOL?
“AWOL Absent WithOut Leave is a term used in terms of subordinates who have disappeared without any information and I believe it is a military term. In this case it was the AXCY credit card which seems to have disappeared from the locked drawers of Rajesh.” I smiled at my family.
“It was around 4 PM when almost half the floor was empty (as usual most on smoking and tea break) I heard Rajesh’s loud voice. He was literally yelling at some one over the phone. Since office was half empty it was almost peacefully quiet so I heard his words clearly.” I continued the story.
“"I keep on telling you I was not even in India at that time, so how could I have made the transactions or used the card?” these were the exact words used by Rajesh””
I looked at my family ““It was clear he had a problem with credit card. “He seemed to be listening and getting redder on the face. “You mean it was an online transaction?" He asked and again seemed to listen. "I am not paying and I want you to raise a complaint". Again he was in listening mode and then furious yelling.””
So I explained to my family I could only hear one side of the conversation until he came to me and then told the entire story so I was going in sequence of the action.
I continued with the narrative of what I saw “"But I saw your statement now only as I was out of station so how could I have raised within 30 days a complaint?" Rajesh shouted once more and then went silent. He was again listening and then he seemed to lose it totally "You frauds, I will find out what I can do about this" and he slammed the phone down.” He turned and then saw me looking at him””
The mystery
““I already got an idea what happened without him explaining but not the details. He walked to me. "Giri I remember you helping with the laptop issue. Please help yaar" Rajesh was asking me for help and I had an idea but it was not complete.”” I told my family.
"Relax, my friend come let us go have a coffee and me my lime tea (it was another option that was there and I liked) and then you tell me the details, I overheard you had a disputed credit card transaction and I deduced that it was the new card which you did not carry with you. I also got it that it was online transaction that happened almost a month back. But it was all I heard so why not detail things like which site the transaction happened, how many transactions, each transaction amount etc”” I narrated more or less verbatim to my family. I used take pride on my memory; I had more than 85% retentive memory at one point of time☹. Age has withered my abilities and I doubt if I could do that now at best maybe 75%.
I continued the story ““Rajesh and I went out took a lime tea each and walked out to the reception sofas and sat down. “Giri you remember the platinum card I showed you 2 months back? I locked it in my drawer and left as you know 2 month back. I forgot about it on return until today when I went to collect my mail from mail room and found a statement from the bank." Rajesh paused and sipped his tea to control his temper.””
““He continued "There was a statement which came last week or so from those frauds. I opened it and there were transactions worth Rupees 50,000 in it yaar. The worst part is that these transactions happened on days when I was in Korea."
"Rajesh, again my earlier questions stand, the transactions happened on which site, how many items, what items, how many transactions, each transaction and items how much each?" I asked him”” I told my family.
““Rajesh was really flustered he replied "I forgot to ask all that Giri because all I knew was that I had never used it and it was fraud. I wanted it reversed and cancelled, they as usual passed me from this department to that and this person to that and finally told me it cannot be done as it was more than 30 days ago and the statement also is 2 weeks old almost. They had the nerve to say I have to appeal within 30 days of the transaction otherwise appeal also is not allowed." Rajesh was getting red faced again.” I told him to drink his tea as I collected my thoughts””
“"Rajesh there are two parts here to this mystery ok?” Rajesh nodded and looked confused and eager. “The question number 1. How did the card get out of your drawer? 2. for what and where these transactions were done? BTW did you keep the pin also in the same drawer" I asked””
““Rajesh replied "Yea I got it before I got the card and I did not think much but it was also in there and both are missing complete with envelopes"” I looked at my family and said “Now you know why I keep telling you never write it down or carry it along in case both are lost it is disastrous for any card debit or credit.””
“I never do that” said Sheeja looking furious. “After you found it first time and warned me I never did that again” she countered.
I happened to look at my parents just as they sort of looked at each other. From the expression and the way they avoided my eyes I had my answer and just smiled sadly. I can admonish but cannot make them obey and again age was against them☹
Whodunit?
““Then I started to advise Rajesh on what need to be immediately done. “Well first step you raise an FIR with cyber crimes division of the police, then use that FIR number to get details of transaction, like which site, what purchase, which date and even IP address of transaction maker" I advised Rajesh””.
I told my family and got up and stretched and began walking around to stretch my legs and continued. I am a 6 feet tall man and most chairs are built for less taller people. So my knees are never at right height from stomach and always cramped.
My family turned around to follow me as I was walking parallel to the table on other side and they were sitting on either side of the table and diwan.
““Rajesh had no idea about all these which I mentioned. Even though he was in an IT company he was from non IT background. So he began asking me like "Ok so we can get all that information?" I said "Oh yes any transaction having payments and that too this sort of large amounts, they record IP my friend. So we can get an IP which with help of cybercrimes department of police they can contact the service provider for details. As you know IP is allocated to each service provider and the police know the IP range by provider. One they find provider they will contact them. With the help of the service provider they can trace city or location, if it is some service provider" Rajesh was sharp, he noted what I said”” I told my family.
“What did he note?” Sheeja asked me.
“Well you should have also noted if you were sharp” I said.
“Ok I am not that sharp so tell us” said my parents also as Sheeja made a face at me ☺
“"Why you said if it is service provider?” Rajesh was looking curiously. I replied "Because I have a doubt. Tell me you locked and took the key of your lockers when you went to Korea, right?" He nodded and I asked him "So how do you think the credit card and pin went out of your locker? Also what does it tell you when the bank said the transaction were online transactions?"”
I looked at my family and asked “Still not getting it?”
They shook heads in negative motion.
I explained ““My question seemed to stun Rajesh he had not thought of the implications and the full problem. “Might be one of the office boys" he said even though he did not seem sure or convinced himself””
““I negated that suggestion “Nope, because they are not fluent about using internet and do not have that much access to online transactions, it shows deliberation and familiarity. Robbery of credit card and using it in ATM is normal thief behaviour. Taking it and shopping also I can understand any thief will try. Taking it, using it deliberately for online transaction shows pre-planned and well aware of these things. It means an IT guy.”” I paused and looked at my family who nodded in understanding.
I continued on as they asked how I reached this deduction. I explained my logic and deduction to Rajesh ““Also the housekeeping could not have seen the card as they are never on the floor except in the evening and morning. Unless they are aware that you have it and that you are gone for long period they would not dare do it. Yes there have been robberies done by housekeeping but mostly cash as you know. Let us get the transaction details I have a feeling it will reveal more and help us solve the whodunit" I reassured Rajesh”” and I smiled at my family.
Again I asked “So is the mystery clear or not?”
“No, how can it be? All clues are still not here” said my Mother.
I smiled and said ““Let us see if we can clear it more and give some more clues. You know I had my suspicions and needed to interview Reddy our department assistant and also wanted to check security logs for the week before the transaction. But it will have to wait till the FIR is lodged and bank provides details”” I continued walking and speaking ☺
I explained to my family elaborating further why I was a bit worried and restless. ““Because I was having a nasty suspicion and remembered two facts clearly. On the day the card arrived we had in office this guy who had newly joined in Bangalore about a month back. And he had come to visit his practice head in Hyderabad. I remember him noticing and listening to Rajesh and me conversing about the credit card that day.”” I told my family as I paused in my walk to look at them.
“So we needed to solve who took it, where it was used, how and for what?” I smiled at my family as they looked at me in full concentration ☺
Solving query 1
““I did not meet Rajesh until next afternoon. He was missing whole morning and when he came in it was almost 2 PM and he looked tired, harried and worried. He had taken almost 4-5 hours to get the police formalities completed. Once he finished his urgent work he came straight to me. “Giri, I had to pay bribe of Rs. 1000 to get FIR registered then I had a letter drafted and mailed it speed post with acknowledgement to the bloody bank””
““Rajesh looked really harassed. “We can only wait now till the answer comes” I reassured him. But it did not happen like that”” I stood still as I was remembering the troubles that followed in the next couple of weeks.
“When this started I had already talked to our group head Prameela and also our office assistant Reddy. Prameela as I told you before was my Boss’s Boss and she had married a Keralite who was then the Head of HR. I had got the security logs and I had also seen what I felt was a strong possibility and explained to Prameela what I wanted to do. I also requested on what I needed a bit of her help for that. Prameela knew about my small successes so was excited and she seemed to see it as just fun.” I paused to take drink of water while my family urged me to continue impatiently.
“Give a man time to drink water at least” I smiled.
I explained to my family how the discussion went with Prameela. ““This is so exciting Giri like really a Sherlock mystery and I would very much see how this turns out after all it is officially important. On the other hand I was feeling really excited to be involved in a mystery and to see how you solve it? I have heard from others about a few of the stories and sounded exciting. Please tell me I would like to be involved and help you solve this.””
I told my family what I felt ““I could not feel so happy or look at it like a child adventure and I had to remind her. “Yes Prameela but for Rajesh it is a big sum of money and not an exciting event” Prameela looked a bit abashed and listened once I explained the doubts and the reasons I had for having it. I outlined her my plans and what we need to do and how she can help get things as head of consulting and maybe some help from her husband as Head of HR.””
“Again here you go making a mystery. What help you needed and what were the doubts?” asked my Amma.
I smiled and explained “Things like the security log information and based on Reddy’s input I was going to need some data from some other people within the company. But I was sure they may not provide the same to me. But Prameela and her Husband can get that resolved. I was assured the support I needed by Prameela. I felt a bit better and felt that in a couple of weeks we will know, one way or other””
“Even though we planned and expected to get it all answered in 2 weeks, it took another 4 more weeks before we got the details. First the foreign bank replied that they cannot give the details. This is one thing I hated about our rules and ruling class. Any foreigner can come start business. Any foreigner can then write his own rules. Any foreigner can then flout our laws and insult our law institutions. No one will question or take action even if it is evident.” I vented my rage about the foreign banks and our regulatory body for banking on how the rules were broken and no one did anything.
I continued “Rajesh was getting calls for payment on top of it. I felt there was no choice but to try and get it escalated. I went to Prameela and asked her help. Then Prameela with help of her husband Ravi engaged our legal department and they drafted a letter and that got action. Our legal department said it was from our premise it was stolen so it is our issue and security matter so we will be pursuing relevant action against culprit and the bank was being obstructive and we will be forced to take necessary action.”
“That did the trick. Within 2 weeks of the legal department notice we received a full detailed letter from the Bank with all the relevant information. There it was - IP address of transaction originator and the webpage / link where the transaction happened. I was shocked once I saw the website name and the purchased items.” I was looking at my family as I said this.
They still looked clueless.
I explained “I only had suspected but my worst suspicions were confirmed. The purchase was for several security management documents and certification fees etc. It also had the dates. It also had the IP and machine id. You know each machine has a unique id and it is recorded when connecting to internet. Especially when payment is made using credit card to safeguard themselves these sites do that” I paused.
“It also tells the service provider and we can get the details of the consumer account if we contact the service provider. Service provider is like Reliance, Idea or BSNL the one who provides internet connection. If we provide them the date and IP address and machine id they can tell address and consumer details.” I continued.
“In this case I was shocked as I had a doubt already and it was confirmed when it showed service provider as Tiffy. Tiffy was Truth System’s own internet service company, which had got a license and had the package internet services for the home and business. So one way it was easy we can trace the consumer after all it is our own company. But what I suspected was it might be that it was part of a dedicated network which was for Truth System itself.”
I paused to look at my family if they understood the implications and then continued as I saw them looking stunned.
“One mail and we got the answer confirming my suspicion. That meant my worst fears were true. It was internal allotted IP for Truth systems. I just needed confirmation and evidence of who was the user of the machine and whether he was in office and if he logged in using his id.” I smiled.