I have been informed by some customers of State Bank of India, particularly in the Srinagar Branch of Bangalore that the Bank is asking for e-mail ID from its customers who want to file 15G certificate.
It is said that many of the account holders who donot have e-mail addresses have been told that it is mandatory and otherwise the TDS the form will not be accepted. Not sure if this is an attempt at a systematic loot of people or it is a method of discrediting BJP and Mr Modi before the elections in Karnataka.
From the perspective of information security, it appears that many of the customers some of them not fully aware of the implications have been told that any e-mail address can be given if they donot have an e-mail ID.
More importantly, some of them have been directed to the nearest Cyber Cafe to open an e-mail account. The Cyber Cafe owner has given them some chit which the customers have given to the Bank. The Chit would have the e-mail address and God knows who knows the password. At least, my housemaid who opened one such e-mail account did not know anything about the password and what the e-mail address is for.
Firstly this is an unfair demand made by SBI to insist that e-mail address is mandatory along with the mobile number. It is dangerous to let the customers who donot know about e-mail management to open accounts with the Cyber Cafe.
There is every possibility that the staff of the Bank and the Cyber Cafe owner would collude and change PIN of the ATM cards and cheat the customers.
I therefore request that an investigation be carried out to find out why State Bank of India, Srinagar branch of Bangalore (Donot confuse with J&K) is insisting on such a procedure unmindful of the risks.
Are they so naive?… If so they deserve to be removed from their positions immediately. If not the possibility of a scam brewing should be recognized and corrective action taken.
If there are political reasons for this, I request the BJP MLA Mr Ravi Subramanya to enquire and find out.
Naavi
On 10th April 2018, I received a call from SBI stating that through an error in programming, the particular e-mail field had been rendered “mandatory” and hence there was problem. They confirmed that action will be taken to correct the same. Also the Bank officer who called profusely thanked for bringing the problem to their notice. We appreciate the immediate action taken by the Bank….. Naavi
