Is Money Debited From Your Account Without Permission? Here's What To Do

If you've noticed money deducted from your account or money debited from your account without permission, you're not alone. Such unauthorized transactions are typically linked to cyber fraud, phishing, or compromised banking credentials. 

As per RBI guidelines, your liability depends on how quickly you report the issue. To act promptly:

• Inform your bank immediately through customer care or by visiting your home branch.
• Call RBI’s Digital Payment Grievance Helpline (14440) to report the fraud.
• Submit a written complaint with the date and time of the unauthorized debit, your bank account/card details, and a description of the issue.
• Attach required documents such as Aadhaar, PAN, FIR/police complaint copy, bank statement showing the fraudulent transaction, and a signed complaint letter.

If the bank finds your complaint valid and you reported it promptly, the transaction must be reversed within 90 days. Delays in reporting can reduce your compensation or make you liable for the loss.

This article explains how to respond to unauthorized debits, your rights as a banking customer, and how banks address such cases in 2025.

Money Debited from My Account Without Permission

While the introduction of digital transactions has helped improve the lifestyle of citizens considerably, it has also paved the way for some unavoidable cons. Banking fraud is one of its examples. These refer to the situation when you get notified about a certain amount of funds debited from your account without your acknowledgement.

This kind of fraud can also be commonly known as cyber fraud, where an individual's bank account gets hacked and automatically initiates transactions without their consent. Such frauds raise questions about the safety and security of online transactions.

Even though the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released specific mandates against such crimes, citizens of India must be aware of such frauds to prevent themselves from falling into these traps.

Responsibility of Banks

All banks tend to have their own team of investigators who are designated to investigate and resolve such transaction fraud cases. Usually, once the team leads to determining if it was a fraud, how it was executed and what type of fraud it was, the bank takes immediate action by reimbursing the client, charging the merchant and pursuing the fraudster for recovering the loss.

Once the bank determines the authenticity of the fraud report, they usually submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) that is then escalated to a legal authority. The bank investigators try to get to the likely indicators of the case such as the location data, time stamps, IP addresses and other related data to determine if the cardholder was anyhow involved in the process.

Finally, if the fraud case leads to a situation when the transaction is determined as fraudulent, the bank takes immediate action to issue a provisional credit to the victim's account.

However, you must remember to lodge a complaint of the same to the bank within 60 days of its execution. This is because, in case of a transaction fraud case, your bank needs to show to a legal authority that their customer has informed them about the transaction dispute at their earliest. Any delays can hold you responsible for informing the authority not on time and for such prospective loss.

Customer Responsibilities

The responsibility of a customer comes first in the cases of transaction fraud. This is because once they are notified about an unacknowledged transaction of funds from their account, they must immediately notify the bank about the same. The quicker they proceed, the earliest their case can be resolved.

Customers must note the time of SMS or mail they might have received that notified them about the transaction dispute. Every detail they get about the scenarios must be kept to show the bank and legal authorities. These are helpful in identifying prospective fraudsters.

However, in case of the customer’s liability during such unfortunate situations, the Reserve Bank of India has released mandates confirming the same. Therefore, if you come across such fraudulent cases, your responsibility would be to inform the bank as quickly as possible. 

The amount of funds that would be credited to your account by the issuing bank to mend up the loss depends on the time when you have informed the bank about the case. The more delay you make, the higher will be your liability.

How to Report Money Debt from My Account Without Permission?

As the first and prime responsibility of the victim customer, you must be aware of the process to report scenarios when your money gets debited from your account without your permission.

Therefore, you can report about the fraudulent transaction case in the following ways:

• Contacting the issuing bank by calling their helpline number or visiting the branch in person. If the fraud transaction was done through the internet or card, the bank can stop such transaction if informed on time.
• You can also give a call on the RBI helpline number, which is 14440 and inform them about the same, asking for the steps for you to proceed.

Once you are done informing them about the case, the issuing bank or the investigating authority can ask you for a few essential documents to lodge your complaint. These include the following:

• A duly filled insurance claim form, signed by you.
• A customer complaint letter to the bank along with the acknowledgment of the branch. The letter must include the signature of the branch service staff and a branch stamp, account number, customer ID and card number.
• An FIR copy or a Police complaint copy.
• The copies of the Aadhaar copy and PAN card.
• A bank statement mentioning fraudulent transactions.
• In case the translation fraud scenario happens outside the country, you need to provide a copy of your passport as well.

How Long Will It Take for the Reversal?

If you are able to inform the respective authority about the fraud transaction case at the earliest, the bank is liable to resolve the case within 90 days from the date of lodging the complaint.

However, if it has been found that you are at fault for such a transaction mishap or make an unnecessary delay in notifying the bank about the case, you will be held liable for your loss based on the RBI guidelines.