Search for
Search for
Search forInternet banker was a fraud victim
Thursday, August 07, 2008, 09:10
She thought she was updating her security details for online banking.
But she was paving the way for a fraudster to take thousands of pounds from her account.
The 46-year-old machinist from Ilkeston had ignored countless e-mails sent to her home computer over several months, purporting to be from banks and building societies.
But when she returned from holiday to find one from NatWest that had not been filtered out by her security software, she decided to investigate.
It told her to log on to the bank's website and update her security details or her internet banking would be stopped.
"It looked like a genuine NatWest site," she said.
"It asked me for my customer number, PIN code and password and, like a fool, I entered them. It then said my NatWest banking was up to date."
Two days later, a phone call from NatWest's fraud office alerted her to the trap she had fallen into. A woman had phoned the bank to transfer £3,600 from Jackie's account to a Mrs E. Gujdova.
Horrified, Jackie confirmed she was not that caller.
"I wanted to be sick," she said. "I went into a blind panic."
Thankfully, NatWest had smelled a rat and stopped the money being withdrawn. The bank says it never asks for security information online.
But not everyone who falls for scams like these – known as phishing – is as lucky. A pensioner in Tayside, tricked by a similar e-mail, was told he would have to bear the loss of £2,300 withdrawn by fraudsters because he broke bank rules by disclosing information about his account to a third party.
The internet has made life easier for us in so many ways but has also opened up a whole new world of opportunity for crooks. Phishing is one of the more lucrative.
E-mail allows fraudsters to contact millions of people at the push of a button. It costs nothing and if only one person falls for the trap, the crooks are in pocket.
There is a legitimate trade in lists of e-mail addresses, just as there has been in postal addresses for years. But fraudsters also send out "generic" e-mail addresses, like johnsmith@ntlword.com.
"The way these criminals work is that they play a percentages game in the hope that a percentage of them will get through," said a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers' Association
As in Jackie's case, the fraudsters might ask for bank details but are just as likely to ask you to check the status of an order. They usually warn of dire consequences if action is not taken immediately.
"It's a cheaper, more anonymous variant of fly-by-night operators setting up stalls in abandoned shops," said Detective Constable Bob Walker, of Derbyshire police's serious and organised crime unit.
"Web monitoring and hosting companies work hard to shut these websites down within days but they can harvest thousands of account details in that time."
The fraudsters' tactics are many and varied, but one of the most dangerous is known as keylogging.
Fraudsters use spam (junk e-mail) or viruses attached to e-mails to install software in the recipient's computer and can then record every keystroke or mouse click made on it, giving them access to passwords and other private information.
Software to guard against this type of fraud is now on the market
Most financial institutions indemnify customers against serious loss from identity theft and will quickly pay back stolen cash if the victim gets a crime number from the police. The banking industry is also introducing technical fixes.
But most fraud involving identity theft relies on plain old-fashioned incentives or flattery, often coupled with a veneer of officialdom.
"Several recent experiments have shown that nine in 10 people would give up computer passwords in exchange for a small gift like a chocolate bar when questioned by someone holding a clipboard," said Det Con Walker.
"All too frequently, people give out sensitive information over the phone when they have no proof that the person at the other end is who they say they are."
Police say the benefits of electronic banking and online shopping are too great to be ignored and if people follow their advice, they will be as safe using a credit card online as they are in shops.
But for Jackie Fisher, once bitten is twice shy. After her near-miss, she visited NatWest in Ilkeston and asked for a paper statement to put her mind at risk.
"I certainly won't bother with internet banking again," she said
Click on the button to share this story with a friend
confidence trick: Fake bank e-mails are a common scam
Be the first to comment