We have heard them a lot before – about the Internet scams robbing money off people, phishing emails, fake Paypal accounts, Nigeria 420 scams taking away your little savings et al. But they happened to someone somewhere or sometimes to a friend’s friend and most of the time we would be safe. How would it be when we come to face with such a thing in real life? Let me tell you, it’s not that easy to take.
On Friday evening, someone from Citibank called up and asked whether I had made any money transfer to anyone in Florida. When I replied in negative, I was told that my account’s security has been breached and a huge transfer has been made to a recently opened account at Citibank, Florida. Since the recipient account was opened only hours ago and the very first transaction happened to be a huge money transfer from abroad, staff at the Florida end got suspicious and have alerted their London counterparts, who in turn contacted me to cross check the same. The fraudster has wiped clear of my account, leaving £36 – perhaps for sundry expenses. Now, my card has been locked and I have filed a police complaint, after which I have passed on the Crime Reference number to the bank. I have been told that I would get my money back as the fraud has been discovered quite early. I am waiting with fingers crossed.
I wonder how the fraudster might have effected this transaction. Citibank representative who called me that evening told that my Internet password could have reached someone; I have reasons to suspect that it might not have been through Internet. Though I hadn’t put all my eggs in the same basket, the other baskets – meaning, my other accounts are accessible through the same Internet login. If someone manages to login into my account and transfer money from one of my accounts, he/she would have done the same from my other accounts as well. Another reason is that, I have never done online banking from any public computer and to my knowledge our corporate network is reasonably secure. Anyway, I have also requested Citibank to send me a detailed incident report on the above.
Now, as I await the return of my money, I have decided to spread my little eggs in to few other places as well. Those who have been reading these pages regularly would know very well about how I had cribbed in the past about Citibank. Only recently, I wrote that they have turned a new leaf. Now, the promptness with which they acted in this case has really pleased me. Pleased or otherwise, when I heard about it for the first time, it did give me a severe jolt.
