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.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2005 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Personal, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 24th, 2005 at 12:32 pm
I’m Uma and my husband is Krishna. We are going to meet at Diwali party over the week end. This is a shocking news. Very sorry about that. Thank God the fraud was found soon and I’m glad that you are getting your money back.
We get calls atleast once in 2 months from Barclaycard to verify that all the recent expenses on the card are genuine if any major expense is made and we were quite irritated of that. But now I feel it is very important.
October 24th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Shit this is scary! I am scared now!
October 24th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
What I suspect is one of the callcenter guys culd be involved!
October 24th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
I am scared and really worried that these things happen. You should get back your money!
October 24th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Maybe I am just being paranoid but are you sure that the call you got informing you of the fraud was genuine?
October 24th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Ha!..This is scary, but good that, it was traced immediately..n that u get to get ur money back…just as u have told, when it comes to us, the fear/shock factor is much more severe than the ones that we read about!
October 24th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
[...]
Internet scams and online frauds seem like distant reports on Tech magazines. Chakra discovers otherwise as a large sum from his account has been transferred without hi [...]
October 24th, 2005 at 1:54 pm
Uma - Welcome here again! Will be glad to meet you this Saturday!
As you say, these calls irritate us when they happen at wrong times.. but that is something which we shouldn’t mind.
Arjuna - It could be anyone.. who knows.
JVC - I’ll be getting back the money.. at least, that is what I have been told.
Varun - Thats a good point. As soon as the caller identified himself saying that he is calling from Citibank, I was careful in my conversation by not letting any unwanted word that may give him any unnecessary details. He too, on his part didn’t ask for any Pin number or anything. After hanging up, I again called up the bank who confirmed the caller’s identity. Further, they have written to me in writing as well.
Krish - Indeed it was.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Chakra…
This is scary man!
I am also keeping my fingers crossed..please post all the details, follow up on the same.
Take Care.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
did you buy anything recently over internet or phone? some of them are not really secure.
Hope you get all your money back. Also, citibank should give you some compensation.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
What the hell is this?
Chakra i am totally stumped by this!
Aniyaayam pa!
do post this in detail….
October 24th, 2005 at 5:23 pm
thank god they found out abt it! hope u get back ur every pence! didnt realise that internet pwds have to be kept so safe
lesson learnt…
October 24th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Thanks for the post. All the best to you and hope you get back the money soon. I have learnt a lesson here.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:01 pm
Goodness!!
What abt security in desibanks??? Me planning to go for TrunkPetti banking!! Surely safer!
October 24th, 2005 at 8:01 pm
And chakra, keep updating on the followup. Will be a good learning on what-to-do. You can add it to Live in UK site.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:15 pm
Chakra
Sorry to hear that, but thank G, they found this out sooner.
Do update about this one.
thanks
Ganesh
October 24th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
First, I hope and pray you get your hard earned money back.
Just yesterday I was listening to such scams.
And today to read it from you…scares me even more.
October 25th, 2005 at 12:06 am
Oh my Sorry to hear about it. I hope you get your money back.
It scares me a lot..
October 25th, 2005 at 1:00 am
OMG this is really bad….hope u get ur money back soon and without any major paperwork hassles…
October 25th, 2005 at 2:43 am
dont worry guys. technology is good (although it is bad sometimes).
with the electronic way of tracking money.. it is completely safe. Dont you think chakra.
Im in this side of technology at work, where the Money transfers are safely tracked and can be reversed at any point of time.
October 25th, 2005 at 4:01 am
OMG!..scary one…atleast firstlaye kandu pidichaangaley…wish you get the money at the earliest and why dont you ask for compensation?
October 25th, 2005 at 4:11 am
Chakra, the good thing about electronic fraud is that it can be easily traced (incl. IP address and all that) and your version of the story will be proved to be true. But neverthless, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
October 25th, 2005 at 6:54 am
Hearing something like this happening to someone you know, is really chilling… it makes me to be more careful during online transactions in future… Hope, you will get back what has been trfrd from your acct.
October 25th, 2005 at 9:52 am
Thanks for your concern & support. Will keep you posted of the developments.
October 25th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
This is bad. Hope you get back your money soon. Thank God they found something suspicious
October 26th, 2005 at 7:38 am
Good that they have suspected about the transfer, otherwise!!!
Interesting it happened in Florida (deserted area in the recent cyclone)…lot of looting, shop-lifting, etc… have happened recently…
Anyway, it is hard-earned money that you will not loose it… thank GOD.
October 26th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
Damn! That does scares the shit out of me.Hope Citi refunds the money back!
October 27th, 2005 at 5:45 am
Well, its a waking call for all of us. need to be extra careful whenever we do transactions. Good of Citibank to alert u early
October 28th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Chakra….this news freaked me out!!
Dho Florida pakathula thaan. ID therinja sollu. Naalu shaathu shaathitu varen. Recenta Pudu thodappam vera vaanginen.
October 28th, 2005 at 9:35 pm
Chakra,
It reminds me Ramprasad & Ganesan’s a/c fraud. It is the same citibank. Using Rama’s a/c someone did a online purchase at SFO. Its better not to have citibank as a main a/c. It shows that they have a flaw in their security. Here in NY, my friend and I having bad experience with Bank of America!.
Cheers
Sriram
October 29th, 2005 at 5:31 am
Is this one of the BPO frauds, that we hear about?
November 1st, 2005 at 2:52 am
Thats pretty scary! I have heard about Credit Card scams, but this is the first time I am hearing about a bank account scam. Citibank is pretty reliable in all these, and I am sure you will get your money back. But yeah such things are a bit difficult to digest when it happens personally.
November 18th, 2005 at 11:43 am
[...] counts from many different banks had been targetted by criminal gangs from Eastern Europe. That particular transaction was also traced to an Eastern European country though he [...]
January 24th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Son pas la chose la plus facile parler, mais son en valeur elle.
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