Targeted by online fraudsters
An email dropped into my inbox to tell me my paypal account had been 'temporarily limited' due to 'several failed log-in attempts'.
It provided a link to log in correctly otherwise: 'If you fail to log in correctly your account will be suspended for fraud prevention.'
Ok I'm not entirely daft and it's an obvious phishing attempt so I forwarded it to the Paypal security centre at spoof@paypal.com
They duly came back and informed me that it was indeed an attempted fraud to get my paypal log in details.
A while ago I spotted something I'd been after for ages on the gumtree online classifieds site.
I got in touch with the seller who provided a host of pics of the item, seemingly genuine.
We agreed a price and they said the best method of payment involved a Western Union transaction via delivery company DHL.
I'd have to wire the cash to a named WD account and DHL would allow the money to be released on my signing for the item.
I contacted DHL direct (the email allegedly from DHL was decidedly fishy) and their security officer told me they offer no such service.
So two direct attempts to defraud me in a relatively short space of time.
It goes to show why some people are afraid of shopping online - where else would you be targeted so frequently by criminals, sometimes personally and quite convincingly?
Is it any surprise therefore that the numbers of reported fraud cases have gone up by a shocking 64 per cent in the last 12 months?
In the second instance of attempted fraud described above, I passed the details on to my local police.
The person I spoke to said that until recently they didn't even investigate most instances where no money had been lost because there were so many.
However, she said that it was becoming a such a massive problem, that I should send the details to their online fraud team. I duly printed out all the emails and sent them via post - three months on and no-one has been in touch.
The fact of the matter is that a lot of innocent people are being targeted and preyed upon - and it is absolutely clear that very little, if anything, is being done by the police to tackle this problem.
Until there is a proper online fraud policing programme in the UK, criminals can act almost with impunity - and a lot of innocent people will have their accounts cleaned out.
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Ben Hurst
A good friend of mine got ripped off by someone using a fake paypal email too. Not too sure what happened, I'll get her to come on here and write a comment - but basically on the strength of a fake email saying a person had transferred funds into her bank, she trotted off to the post office and sent a very expensive mobile phone off to Africa. Needless to say the money never made it to her account and she was unable to get hold of whoever sent it.
It is disgusting that the police refuse to follow these things up. There is no defense for people who get conned. Fair enough we all need to be on our guard, but sometimes it's not as easy as being careful.
While I understand the frustration felt by people being targeted in this way, what do you want to polcie to do about it? The internet has given the perfect way for fraudsters to target people thousands of miles away and across the globe. With no jurisdiction, police here could spend weeksand thousnads of pounds of tax-payers money tracking down the culprits and then sending the ir dossier to local law enforcers to act on. Fine if it is somewhere like north America or Europe, but what if it is some cash-strapped country in Africa or the Far East. Surely police in those countries would be better off tackling their own problems rather than the whinges from people here. The easiest answer is for all of us to take our own precautions and check out the information provided by the other party (don't be too trusting of them) much like technobabble did