A fraction of a minute’s delay would have cost a private firm’s managing director Rs 16.85 lakh that was about to be siphoned off by online fraudsters.
The complainant, Navinkumar Surendranath Sheth (78), said that a fraudulent email instruction had been sent to his bank managers instructing them to transfer Rs 16.85lakh into another bank account.
Shockingly, the bank officials were about to transfer the amount without cross-checking.
To his luck on January 7, Sheth called up the bank to inquire about a transaction when the manager told him they were about to follow his email instructions in a short time. Sheth immediately asked the bank officials to stop the transaction as he hadn’t authorised it.
Sheth is a resident of Vimannagar and lodged a complaint in this regard with Airport police station.
He told dna, “After coming to know about this, I immediately went to the bank the next day and met the bank officials. The officials showed me three mails that had come under my name. I was surprised because I hadn’t sent any mail to the bank regarding any transactions. I myself decided to take the help of a private computer expert. I called him up and asked him to check my computer at home. He checked my email account but did not find anything.”
He then discussed the matter with a friend and came to know that this is one of tricks of fraudsters to get details of people’s account information.
Sheth said, “The fraudsters had sent the first mail at 12.30 pm to the bank officials inquiring about the balance in my account. Thereafter, they again sent a mail under my name at 3.40 pm and asked the bank officials to transfer the amount to their given account.”
Sheth added, “Following which, the bank officials were in the process to transfer the amount. The fraudsters again sent the third mail at around 4 pm. Exactly, at that time I called up in the bank for inquiry and came to know about the possible transaction,” Sheth added.
The police and experts claimed that it is an online fraud where fraudsters hacks email and checks their bank details. Thereafter, they send a mail to the bank concerned under the name of person concerned and asked the bank officials to transfer the amount to their bank account.
Senior police inspector Sarjerao Babar of cyber crime cell (CCC) told dna, “In order to hack the email id of people, fraudsters randomly send their mail to people. If person open their mail, fraudsters manage to hack the email and thereafter they get bank account information. Interestingly, most of the people are unaware about this trick and are being cheated by fraudsters.”