Youth’s Bank Account Used in Transferring Phished Funds

A case of an unemployed young man lodging a complaint with the police that he was inadvertently involved in an online phishing fraud has given rise to a new turn to internet crime, as reported by TOMESOFINDIA on December 27, 2008.

The young man D. Sakthi Kumar, native of Nanmangalam, Tamil Nadu, India, had let a person, whom he became acquainted online, to use his savings bank account for a fund transfer. Sakhti said that an unnamed person claiming to belong to an organization contacted him through an e-mail offering him to become a payment agent if he owned an account at a certain private bank.

Soon after that, Sakhti received an e-mail message on December 4, 2008 from an individual who said he was a businessman from Hyderabad. This man informed him that Rs 50,000 had been transferred to his account and he needed to take out the money and deposit it into the bank account of a certain Delhi-based businessman. The e-mail further told Sakhti that he could retain 5% of the sum as his commission.

Thus, doing as was told, Sakhti kept Rs 2,500 with himself as the commission. Later he got a telephone call from a privately owned bank in which the manager asked him to make a visit to the branch. When Sakhti, who did not have an account with that branch, visited the bank, found that he was being accused of stealing Rs 50,000 from the account of R. Shankar. The manger also ordered him to give back the amount instantly.

A senior official with the police's cyber-cell division states that the whole thing appears to be a phishing fraud where the method of operation involved fraudsters sending bogus e-mail to people asking them to provide their bank account details for fulfilling certain purposes.

Although internet usage in India might be low compared to the global standards, the growing utilization of internet for business transactions is starting to reveal a seamier angle. Account holders with reputed Indian banks encountered over 1,000 phishing attacks during July 2007-June 2008. Also, India had contributed 4% of the total global spam.

Related article: Youth Accused For Scamming Brokerage Accounts

» SPAMfighter News - 1/2/2009