An increasing phishing peril to Indian Banking Industry

An increasing phishing peril to Indian Banking Industry

At least the second part of June 2009 has witnessed a significant increase in the number of phishing websites that have been targetting indian banks. On a quick sample, my emailbox has been recieving on an average of 2 phishing emails per day from June 10 through June 21 and then the average has changed to 1 email per day from June 22 through June 28. I have been diligenty reporting each one to ibrm.co@axisbank.com and ibrm@axisbank.com so that these sites could be brought down quickly before they wreak havoc on more number of customers.

I am sure that the Anti-Phishing team at Axis Bank (and similar other banks) would have also recieved at least 10x number of similar phony websites. I just thought of sharing this message with other readers that they would need to exercise a heightened caution whilst transacting on their bank accounts online. Also, it takes a minute to report any such phishing email to your bank internet department so that this menace can be controlled quickly.

Here I would summarize a few email addresses to which you would need to report the full phishing email so that the internet banking team of the bank can bring such websites down.

1. Axis Bank: ibrm.co@axisbank.com (or) ibrm@axisbank.com
2. ICICI Bank: executivedirector@icicibank.com
3. HDFC Bank: fake.email@hdfcbank.com (and) support@hdfcbank.com
4. Citibank: indiaservice@citigroup.com
5. Canara Bank: cbgimb@canbank.co.in
6. State Bank of India: report.phishing@sbi.co.in

 

Recession days are triggering Retail Robbery

Recession days are triggering Retail Robbery

 

These days of recession seems to be driving some organizations in Chennai to resort to a kind of retail robbery in their own styles. I have two incidents to share.

 

• 51 months for Hutch (Vodafone) to completely close an unneeded mobile phone connection

Citibank Cash Deposit Melodrama: About three weeks back, I deposit around 1000 rupees in Cash Deposit in one of the Citibank ATMs. The normal procedure is that the cash payment gets credited to the account almost the next day though the bank stipulates 48 hours to safeguard for its inertia.

 

This time three days passed and there was no response from Citibank regarding the cash credit. The Citiphone as usual was acting as a good testimony for our ‘Thikkuvay Thandavarayan‘. When I wrote to indiaservice (at) citicorp.com, I got a random reply each day whilst trying to get updates from them. A few of them are:

 

1. No updates from collection team. They would get back in 3 days. After two days one email would come mentioning that they need more time and they woud get back in 3 more days.
2. They wanted a scanned copy of the ATM reciept to verify inspite of me giving all details over the very first complaint (the 4th day after deposit).
3. On asking if there would be late payment charge, they could not reply with confidence at all.

After one week, Citiphone started to divert calls to some one called ‘Senior Officer’, ‘Subject Matter Expert’. I am not sure how many nicknames their next cubicle colleagues would carry just to cheat the customers.

 

After three ways, they now credited the cash payment. But the very next day one guy purportedly from Citibank called me regarding on service feedback regarding the problem resolution and he got the bang from me from irritating me all along.

 

Just thought I would share these two incidents with other readers since these days of slowdown, some of the unscrupulous organizations in India are trying to make the best to loot customers by all forms of bad trade.

 

Landscaping in India

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We have been observing the following unruly boisterous scenes in many parts of our nation:

1. Reckless deforestation
2. Inhuman treatment of dumb animals
3. Destruction of public properties
   1. Pelting of stones on public transportation services like buses and derailing trains
   2. Reckless sticking of bills and stickers on fencing walls.

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Yesterday I had a quick talk to a person who had been in the Electoral Services during last Lok Sabha elections. Along with the summary of key points learnt from him and also from the observations in Dallas, I would like to share a solution here for the partial set of maladies listed above.

According to the Election Commission of India report 2006, here is the list of political parties that are functioning in India. And now it is 2009. At least we have seen two new major political parties in Chennai coming up this period. They are DMDK (headed by Vijayakant) and TMMK (powered by Muslims in Tamil Nadu). Each of the parties claim a sizable chunk of supporters in each region.

If you take for example, Irving (Texas) has a citizen-powered community operating with this website. They have rich plans like the following:

1. Patrols in support of Irving Police
2. Landscaping support
3. Cleanliness of Roads
4. Strict discipline in public areas

I don’t think it is difficult to enforce similar strategies in our place. We do have something called ‘Friends of Police‘ in Chennai, but currently either of the Commissionarates (metro or suburban) is not interested in actively developing it. This blogger has personally written to cop@vsnl.net to get more details on the scheme. But there has been scant response to the emails.

When someone brings this to limelight, the state administration and police immediately excuse themselves as paucity of staff. The simple question is why can not the political parties’ muscle power and manpower be mobilized for the welfare of the country. The PDF from Election Commission website above lists a whopping number of political parties. If these strength can be channeled for landscaping and Friends of Police, I don’t think, it is that difficult to bring a stronger discipline in our nation, riot-free and make jobs difficult for terrorists and antisocials. Currently, the workforce of the political parties and their cadre are just misused to showcase the vote-bank strength of their leaders by shouting behind them slogans, going in processions, pelting stones at the slight stimulus of incidents against their leaders.

I think Lok Sabha elections are quite near. These political parties would disfigure very many apartments and building fences with their advertisements quite illegally. I just thought, if some one can make them think logically of using their cadre for a most constructive way for the nation. The nation currently reels under multiple challenges — economic turbulence and security issues. Currently, we don’t flocks of illogical mob chanting meaningless slogans against thier erring leaders. We only need handful of people who can exhibit true patriotism towards the nation in making it a peaceful piece of land on this planet.

 

A Sort of Inferiority Complex …

A Sort of Inferiority Complex …

Be it from the pages of history or the current day scenarios, there seemed to be a widespread inferiority complex amongst a section of the people. I am not sure on which category they should be put up in and hence I am leaving it to the wide and diversified speculation of the audience.

1. For some reason, I have been observing that Bharti Airtel always celebrates and nurtures a greed on the state-owned BSNL. Whilst they support Call Forwards to all other private networking counterparts, it always says ‘Request not completed’ for BSNL numbers. And again, if you raise this issue to Bharti CustomerCare, they only end up portraying themselves as characters that stand testimony for our Thikkuvay Thandavarayan.
2. There is one recent incident that I encountered and I just got confirmed with a lot of other friends that the newly launched BSNL Online Billing website does not load successfully through a complete transaction with either Airtel or Reliance connections. Tata Communications VSNL, BSNL and including many providers abroad do not face this issue. Is this again a treacherous initiative by Airtel standing testimony of their crooked initiatives in getting to the forefront by unethical means.
3. Around the fag end of last month (February), I had a quick visit to District Employment Office to have my employment card renewed. Again, those brandishing all those community-certificates seems to be suffering a sort of agony in front of those competing from ‘Open Competition’. This comes despite the fact that the state administration is pampering them even if they do not possess requisite competitive skills in the market. The need of the hour and the impeccable robust solution to this can only be bringing out ‘Merit Minority Institutions‘.
4. The recent uproar in Chennai High Court including pelting of rotten eggs on veteran advocate Subramanian Swamy and raising slogans peppered with caste-driven expletives against him is again a signal when sections of people are running into a sort of inferiority complex. They are unable to vent out their emotions and hence bursting out in a sort of hysteria. [News Source: http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Advocates+assault+Subramanian+Swamy&artid=C0BGlaNexCk=&SectionID=lifojHIWDUU=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=rSY|6QYp3kQ=&SEO=Subramanian+Swamy;+advocates;+assault;+Janata+Part]

The better solution to the above inferiority complex would be setting up politically and industrially independant counselling units to cure the affected of their maladies.

 

51 months for Hutch (Vodafone) to completely close an unneeded mobile phone connection

51 months for Hutch (Vodafone) to completely close an unneeded mobile phone connection

It was rather an interesting tale of incidents with a short-lived Vodafone mobile phone number that I got only for a few days in November 2004 but opted to surrender it because of the following reasons pertaining to Hutch in those times:

1. Totally helpless and hapless customer care
2. Absolutely pathetic network coverage in my area (Medawalkam to Tambaram).

 Now goes the incidents from November 2004 to March 2008. Since I normally jot down the incidents in my diary, I was easily able to pull out the same chronologically. 

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24th November 2004: Me and my friend were trying to see if Hutch CUG plan was good since one of the marketing executives were trying to sell some lucrative cost-effective options. Both of us submitted the application forms and got the SIM card too.

But even the same day night, I was totally unable to use this connection near my residence. Even a manual search of available networks didn’t list it. Unable to reach Hutch CustomerCare.
 
25th November 2004: I checked with Hutch CustomerCare but there was no reliable and responsible reply on that front. Hence temporarily shifted to my Airtel Connection itself.
 
2nd December 2004: I walked into Hutch Shop at TTK Road and surrendered the SIM Card. The same day evening, one Ms. Sujatha called me to confirm on why do I wanted to close the connection? I told her it was simply unusable. I also made an interim payment of INR 8, as was visible in the statement at Hutch Store, Sir Thyagaraya Road, T. Nagar. I intentionaly routed the payment through credit card so that bank would have an additional record of this transaction because it is a closing transaction.
 
A week later, Sujatha again called me stating that they had a little orientations of BTS (Base Transciever Stations) changed and realigned near Camp Road, Selayur. She offered me a free replacement SIM Card by sending a representative. When I tried this, it was still of no avail. Now two things were turned false assurances from Hutch CustomerCare:
 

1. The free SIM replacement was false (The statement that came around December 12th carried a charge for the same)
2. The network was still pathetic.

 
I wrote to Hutch Customer Care and this time addressing their grievances. I could not recall whether they had any Nodal type of post like they have now. They offered to close off the account. I checked with her to settle the account. She asked me to visit the nearest Hutch store. I paid one more visit to Sir Theagaraya Road (Pondy Bazaar) Hutch store again. Since it was a second closure, they took the reasons for closure. I suggested them the following things in the closure form.
 

1. Bad and pathetic network coverage in Chennai suburbs
2. Unreachable CustomerCare
3. False promises like free SIM replacement but the outstanding reflects charges for the same.
4. Airtel was providing Roaming without Rentals but Hutch charged a steep rental of INR 25 per month regardless of whether you are in roaming network or not. It is a flat monthly rate charged to your plan.

 
The store manager accepted the closure request and since the statement was still not generated, he was telling it would be closed and waived since there was no call usage also besides having surrendered the SIM. I double-confirmed with me before I left the store.

 

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February 2009: There was one call from +919884019865 pretending to be an advocate of Vodafone on my residence phone number in a typical vernacular dialect. She was telling the following (translated from Tamil) “There is an outstanding payment dues from Deepak Vasudevan. We have been trying to send letters but no response. I am waiting in Chennai High Court but no response till now.” She was also adding that I have used Vodafone number and made calls during my previous organization. But when challenged with the organization name and Vodafone number alloted, she is unable to reply. Interesting thing was she called from +919884019865 and the number given for callback is 9884002106. And the call came around 7. 25 PM (beyond normal business calling hours) on 4th February 2009. I am still not clear on the following:

1. How was she working in Chennai High Court campus at 7. 30 PM?
2. What were the letters and reminder sent to my official correspondence addresses which never came in?
3. If they could not communicate on my numbers all along for four years, from where on earth, the communication links suddenly got established bolt out of the blue?
4. She was not able to reply and quantify the ‘previous organization’ term that she was uttering.

 
When I wrote this to Vodafone Customer Care and Nodal Officer the same day, I got the first reply from Nodal around 20th February. It takes around two to three weeks for the nodal officer to open their mailboxes. In the melee, Vodofone customer care scribbled back a gibberish reply and wanted me to again call that stupid collection executive and get her name, number and my phone number on which she had complained outstanding payment. I just replied them that the executive herself was using a Vodafone number. So the issue is about a Vodafone connection. So it is well within their domain to investigate the issue completely.
 
I also visited a Vodafone store and got the account number for the mobile number. When I called Hutch Care, the call landed after much difficulty to an executive, who I suspect might be affected with hysteria. He was strongly yelling out ‘You failed my security questions. This mobile phone number which you told is currently a prepaid number. I can not pull out history records for you’. I thought I should have hired a light music group who should have played a background music like ‘Jing Jing Jikki. Jing Jing Jakki’ along with his yelling. I was really amused on the bad quality of Vodafone Care too.

 

Around 20th February 2009, Sunitha (Chennai Nodal Officer)’s representative ‘Rekha’ called me and she was telling me the following procedure:

 

1. She apologized for the false waiver but I needed to pay the outstanding after which in 48 hours, the settlement letter soft copy would be sent across to me.

 

When I visited Velachery Vodafone Store, it was again one joke. They will not offer a payment reciept too for this payment it seems. Only the collections executive would give it. Some one called Purushottaman/Richard from Vodafone Store (Velachery) called me a day before and confirmed  that I would be given reciept immediately and settlement letter also in the same day evening. But on personal visit, the assurances were otherwise. Interestingly, there was no one called Richard. When I checked against his phone number, he belonged to Vodafone Store ECR.

 

I wrote back to Nodal stating this issue. After one more two to three days of time, Rekha called me again to clarify and again apologize for the issue. But she still wanted to check back for a resolution. I tried to visit Vodafone Adyar in the melee. Fortunately, they were kind enough to accept the payment and give the reciept too.

 

Now, the 48 hours promise from Nodal became 72 hours. Interestingly, the same mail conversational thread has 48 hours in page 4 and 72 hours in page 2 (most recent reply). And about last week, I had the settlement letter indicating a full and final settlement letter soft copy was sent to my email address.

 

During the post-payment and amidst the settlement procedures, I have a few interesting observations on Nodal Officer behavior in Vodafone Care:

 

1. They call from a particular number but if we are not able to pick up the call it and when we try to callback, I observed a most vulgar song as Caller Tune being played. But no one picks up. I brought this also to the notice of Rekha and she was telling that the song is randomly chosen. But how come the randomization is same across multiple days.
2. The nodal number elicits an  ’Out of Service’ reply after 7 PM.
3. Also, throughout the procedure whenever, I send a note to Nodal Officer, the auto response carries a message like ‘If you want to update the emailid, write to sunitha@vodafone.com’. I also brought this to the attention of Nodal Officer. I think, they have just copy pasted the same text (Autoreply) across all the mailboxes setup in Vodafone.

 

I just thought of sharing this bad behavior of supposedly an international telecom company in India and I think it is a signal for us to stay away from such hooligans.

 

Cops behind college students in Chennai

Cops behind college students in Chennai

It is said that literacy would reduce legal complications and eliminate crime scenarios. However, in Chennai, at least in recent times, the number of face to face conflicts between cops and college students seem to be on an always ascending spree. I would recall a few incidents that substantiate this observation:

1. “Three students were seriously injured in a violent caste clash that broke out between two groups of students at Ambedkar Law College on Wednesday.The students waged a pitched battle, even as a posse of policemen waited outside the gates and news photographers clicked pictures.Knives, iron rods, wooden logs and tubelights were freely used by the clashing students. The police remained silent spectators, waiting for a call from the college principal for help.” (YouTube Video)

2. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to see a small public advisory put up by Chennai cops in many buses which reads as (translated from Tamil): “If you are disturbed in buses by college students, please call 9003130101,9003130102,9003130103,9003130104″.

What is happening to the state of Tamil Nadu? Once upon a time, the colleges here were a great welcome for many students including those abroad. Is the government in deep slumber to bring law and order in the state?

 

Address and ID Proofs

Address and ID Proofs
 
Be it opening a bank account or to apply/renew/reissue of passport, we always need two types of proofs in India. They are the following: 

1. Proof of Residence Address (aka) Address Proof
2. Proof of (Photo) Identification (aka) ID Proof
3. Proof of Age (aka) Age Proof

 
The purpose of this write-up is to help out on these topics and as-well to serve as an one-stop information repository on the following topics:
 

1. What does each proof actually stand for?
2. What documents qualify for each of the proof?
3. When and where does each document befits and in what quantity?

 
Note: This compilation is on my personal best-effort basis to serve the people with a good compendium of information on the diversified set of proofs that are challenged by different organizations from the general public before a contract of service could be delivered or a new relationship account could be established. This is not officially endorsed post by anyone. Use these information purely for reference, check the validity of them for the date of use and for the organization to which you are going to use and at your own risk. If you have more information to share on these front, please add them as comments to the post for the benefit of other readers.
 
Inspiration for this writing: Of late, I had two interesting necessity to visit featured government organizations like Regional Passport Office (Chennai), Employee Provident Fund Commissioner Office (Chennai) and District Employment Office (Chennai) on a normal survey and a two minute watch of the plight of public at the merciless counter-personne there drove me to compile this information as a service.  

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Age Proofs:  Age Proofs as they are called indicate the genuineness of your date of birth. This is particulary very important for Senior Citizens to avail certain benefits in Railway Tickets etc. The following documents can be used as Age Proofs:

1. Birth Certificate: Once upon a time, the hospitals where the child was born were authorized to issue birth certificates. Nowadays, we are required to register with the local Corporation or Town Panchayat any birth that happens in the family and to get the birth certificate. Check out this info from Citizens’ Charter page of Government of Tamil Nadu.
2. Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC). This is actually the tenth standard certificate and for those studying in Matriculations or Anglo-Indian board, their certificates qualify under the same banner. Besides the various marks obtained in the different subjects, information like date of birth are available in the certificate. Take greatest care of your SSLC/Matriculation/Anglo-Indian examination certificate. Procedure to get a duplicate copy of the same is very cumbersome as this one from Directorate of Government Examinations, Tamil Nadu indicates.

 
ID Proofs: Identity Proofs are those ones where one can establish a one-to-one mapping of the profile along with a distinct photo of the person on it. It is hence aptly also known as Photo Identification Proofs. The following documents can be used as ID Proofs:

1. Income Tax PAN Card. The PAN Card is actually a photo-identification of the person and carries a unique permanent account number alloted by the Income Tax Department to him.
2. Electoral Voters Identity Card. Check out this FAQ by Election Commission of India which explains the process of getting a Voter’s Card.
3. Passport. Check out Indian Passport website for comprehensive information.
4. Driving License. Basically, this is issued by RTOs in your circle after testing your vehicle driving skills.
5. Any other Photo Identity Cards issued by State/Central Government
6. A few of the organizations also accept employer identification cards. But this is not a universal standard across the country.

 
Address Proof: Address Proof is the one which establishes the communication contact point to which you can be reliably reached for any correspondence. The following documents can be used as Address Proofs:
 

1. Passport
2. Driving License
3. Electoral Voters Identity Card
4. Ration Card issued by Civil Supplies Department
5. Insurance Policy (A IRDA approved insurance organization-issued policy)
6. A working landline telephone bill (BSNL/MTNL bills are strongly recommended and welcome everywhere)
7. Electricity Bill
8. House Tax Bill
9. Income Tax Certificate
10. Lease Agreement
11. Water Bill
12. Address Cards issued by IndiaPosts.

 

February to March — The (Bank) Telemarketers Go Astray

February to March — The (Bank) Telemarketers Go Astray 

Starting from after Pongal holidays in January till the end of March (financial year), at least in Chennai and Bangalore, you can observe a stiff amount of telemarketing calls from various banks and non-banking financial institutions offering to sell various products without caring about NDNC and paying heed to any telemarketing norms/rules laid down by DoT and TRAI. This is also a good time to show a good citizenship gesture by sticking on the following quick tips to manage through these menace: 

1. Report every incident to your telephone operator and ensure that they issue a warning notice or serve an invoice for penalty to the offender. Sometimes the operator call center might show gestures of laziness. It does involve a bit of effort from our side.
2. Do not succumb to the sweet girl’s voice on the phone. The telemarketers deploy such ploy only as a sticky dragnet to catch the unwary.
3. Let us also try to add these defaulters to our ‘Violators List’ over here.
4. We can still use our Mission Hilarity to derive most fun out of the situation too.

 

The Cheap Selfish Ploy of Chennaiites

The Cheap Selfish Ploy of Chennaiites

 

At least in Chennai, you can witness the following foray of cheap ploy deployed a handful of them to derive sadistic pleasures and to gain at the expense of others. A few of them are here under:

 

1. Making a crowd to gather. When there is enough crowd, then instead of providing diligent service, to show excuse of the crowd and to escape from the moral and ethical responsibilities. The following places can be quoted as salient examples for this observation:
   1. Almost all government departments. I have particularly witnessed them in Office of Revenue Department, Cash Officer Desk of State Bank of India
2. Delaying the normal service by lame excuses. When the issue crops up again, put a new excuse and a novel schedule for the same old task and repeat the same process.  HSBC India is the finest example for this ploy.
3. Ensuring that their near and dear are only benefitted at the expense of others. Flatter others and in the process, to suck their blood for the benefit of thier near and dear. Our recent discussion on ‘Son Stroke’ demonstrates as a salient example for the same.
4. Creating an unwarranted, tense and turbulent situation for others and thus reducing their overall productivity.

Would such skunks ever learn of their folly and the amount of sins they are accruing with the account book of Chitragupta.

 

Fading Name(board)s …

Fading Name(board)s …

 

Real Estates in Chennai construct gigantic residential townships everywhere in the suburban. They put good attractive archs to attract attention. But do they really maintain it? This is one big question that hits every one of us. I have a few instances of leading house construction firms in Chennai who are erring in little to big problems in Chennai.

 

1. Right near Velachery on the Velachery – Tambaram Road, you can find a huge housing colony constructed by Doshi Housing. For the past one week, the I in doshi has fallen off and it now reads as Dosh Housing. I informed the security over there but he just brushed it out. The email on the website is eliciting a bounce like ‘Over Quota’.
2. On the Velachery – Taramani road, you can find Vasanth Apartments. The name board has dropped the ‘h’ in apartments and hence it now reads ‘Vasanth Aparments’. Again, at least till now no response to the phone call to them. They don’t seem to have a website/email anyway.
3. Poorly maintained lifts causing accidents in Jains Abhishek, Selayur
4. I also recieved a message from one of my program manager working in a leading health care company in Kodambakkam High Road and put up in Jains Eiffel Gardens. He strongly discourages Jains telling that at least his experience is bad.
5. My friend (Santosh Kumar Sinha) who recently got a flat in Jains Green Acres (Pallavaram) also has a bad experience of unwarranted delays in completion of construction and handover of flat keys to him.
6. Around 2004, when I was looking out for flat purchase, I was trying to see Jains Abhinavan in Murugu Nagar (Velachery). Some of the promises made by them like water drainage service made feel suspicious. Hence I didn’t purchase from them. Now every year, I read from the newspapers that Murugu Nagar is one of the worst-effected during monsoons because of heavy inundations.

I just thought of sharing these with other readers so that we need to be extra careful with the builders in not being carried over the honey-coated words but only rely on the existing facts on what we see.