DUBAI 5 July 2017: An Indian customer service employee at a national bank allegedly embezzled a total of Dh250,000 from customer accounts, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.
JM, 36, worked as a sales representative before she was transferred to customer service at the bank’s call centre.
In April, bank client M received an SMS about the transfer of an amount from his account. Since he had not asked for the transfer, he approached the bank and complained that he did not apply for any transfer.
The bank investigated the complaint and found out that the transfer was processed by the customer service using ID of employee identified as S. But employee ‘S’ denied processing the transaction.
However, the system allows any employee in the call centre’s customer service to electronically fill an application, process it and refer it to the transfer department.
“We had to retrieve all calls made during that period. We discovered that JM had attempted to call the client’s mobile number,” testified the bank’s investigation officer.
Facing JM with that, she admitted to stealing amounts from four clients whose accountants were in active for four to five months. She admitted that she called the targeted clients to ensure that they are not available in the country so that they would not discover the transfers.
According to the rules, the bank’s transfer section does not confirm transfer applications made through the customer service call centre. The section only sends an SMS to the client informing about the transfer after processing it.
JM admitted to transferring amounts to two accounts in other different banks in the name of AK.
In order to cover up any probable detection from the collection section, she made her husband to deposit small amounts in the targeted accounts.
The accused admitted that since the collection section does not monitor transfers if they were followed or proceeded by deposits, she asked her husband to deposit small amounts in the victim’s accounts.
She said she did that because she needed money.
The court will reconvene on August 1.
By Lolyana Zaki