The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Senior citizen duped of Rs.7 lakh

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Saturday, Apr 12, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Senior citizen duped of Rs.7 lakh

Special Correspondent

Victim responds to e-mail, reveals his account details
Money transferred to four different accounts

CHENNAI: A senior citizen in the city fell victim to ‘phishing’ and was duped of Rs.7 lakh recently.

The Central Crime Branch police have registered a case of online fraud following a complaint from the victim and on the directions of Commissioner of Police G. Nanchil Kumaran.

Investigating officers said on Thursday that the senior citizen had received an e-mail which claimed to have been despatched by his banker (HDFC Bank).

Under the guise of updating the database of account holders, the e-mail sought certain information.

The victim clicked in the marked area in the e-mail which instantly enabled the trickster to gain access to his bank account details.

The trickster using the net banking facility, transferred a sum of Rs 1 lakh each to four different account holders (all of HDFC Bank) in Hyderabad and Rs 3 lakh to anaccount holder in New Delhi, the CCB officers said.

Accounts frozen

When the police found that the money was credited to the four accounts in Hyderabad, they immediately directed the bank to freeze the accounts.

However, the Rs 3 lakh transferred to New Delhi was withdrawn, it was found.

Inquiries with the account holders in Hyderabad revealed that they had no information about the offence. They had opened the bank accounts recently following promises of lucrative returns made by the trickster.

A senior officer investigating the case said that the four account holders had been allegedly offered 10 per cent commission by the trickster. All that they were instructed to do was to take Rs.10,000 each from the money transferred and convert the balance Rs 90,000 in US dollars and transfer it to the account of the trickster.

Nigerian scam

Police officers in the Bank Frauds Wing said that a scrutiny of the IP addresses of the e-mails revealed that they were sent from the U.S. Under the guise of offering lucrative sums to unemployed educated persons and housewives and that they can work from home and earn, the trickster had directed them to open the bank accounts.

Describing this as ‘Nigerian Scam,’ the officers said that the public should not be carried away by such sugar-coated offers. Instead, they should delete such e-mails from their inbox.

A senior executive of a public sector bank said that they had been repeatedly cautioning their customers, especially, those with net banking facility about the risks involved in accessing such e-mails.

With more online frauds being reported, banks should step up their awareness, he said.

Mr. Kumaran said that the CCB police officers had been participating in programmes to sensitise public to online frauds.

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