|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 7, 2013 14:15:18 GMT -8
I'm posting this as a warning of how unscrupulous internet thieves can be, and a suggestion that you should question unusual payment instructions, even if they appear legitimate.
A local insect dealer here in Chiang Mai was recently robbed of large sums of money by people who hacked her e-mail account. What they did was read e-mails between her and customers, and whenever she sent an invoice for insects the hackers would send an e-mail to the customer using her e-mail account instructing them to send payment by Western Union to a name and address in Dubai. Since the instructions came from her e-mail account and contained the correct information the customers sent money to Dubai as instructed. It was some time before the insect dealer realised what had happened, but before then she had already lost thousands of US dollars in payments diverted to the thieves.
Adam.
|
|
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2013 1:56:17 GMT -8
Scum of the highest order.
|
|
|
|
Post by bichos on Aug 8, 2013 4:48:18 GMT -8
Wow, that's disturbingly intrusive, elaborate and effective. I wonder if Western Union offers any protection to users, given their fees are so high. Maybe not in this instance, as the source of the fraud was the e-mail acount being hacked which has nothing to do with WU. Now the question remains: Will she send the specimens? As they have now been 'payed' for. Tough luck indeed, let's hope this practice does not become more common than it already is.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2013 4:52:29 GMT -8
Just last week I received an email from what looked like paypal. The email stated that someone had tried to access my account on numerous occasions and that I needed to fill out a form that was provided on an attachment in the message, and re-set my password. I knew straight away that the email was fake because paypal would never ask you to fill out any forms, but others may find it a genuine message from paypal and fill out the form. The message even came with a paypal reference from a transaction. Never ever fill out any of these forms....
Cheers
pete
|
|
|
|
Post by suzuki on Aug 8, 2013 4:55:14 GMT -8
The difficulty is that the buyers have innocently paid following receipt of the invoices. Paypal for these transactions is clearly the safest way to go in future for both parties. I always worry when a seller states Western Union for payment. It is expensive with no recourse available if fraud happens as in this case.
|
|
|
|
Post by bobw on Aug 8, 2013 5:48:08 GMT -8
One thing that would help to reduce instances of fraud is if we as a community refused ever to use Western Union as there are no checks or comebacks as there are with Paypal or bank transfers. Personally I would never use them anyway as their charges are nothing short of extortion on top of a punitive exchange rate!
Bob
|
|
|
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 8, 2013 8:21:31 GMT -8
Now the question remains: Will she send the specimens? As they have now been 'payed' for. Tough luck indeed, let's hope this practice does not become more common than it already is. The dealer sent the specimens first, payment on receipt to her regular customers. She realised that it wasn't her customers' fault and they had sent the money, only they had sent it to the fraudsters. Adam. |
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 8, 2013 8:26:54 GMT -8
The difficulty is that the buyers have innocently paid following receipt of the invoices. Paypal for these transactions is clearly the safest way to go in future for both parties. I always worry when a seller states Western Union for payment. It is expensive with no recourse available if fraud happens as in this case. Actually the dealer normally always receives payment by bank transfer to her account, but the customers were tricked into sending the money by Western Union to a name & address in Dubai because the e-mails came from the dealer's account with all the right information included. The customers didn't realise that someone had hacked into the dealer's e-mail address, and no-one even thought to ask her why she had changed her normal payment method, and to a totally different country as well. Personally I don't trust webmail, and have all my e-mails stored on my computer (with several back-ups as well of course). Adam. |
|
|
|
Post by nomad on Aug 8, 2013 8:54:34 GMT -8
Very sad and shocking.
|
|
|
|
Post by suzuki on Aug 8, 2013 9:22:54 GMT -8
Adam. Understood. The point I was trying to make is that with Western Union there is no recourse for the seller in this instance. However with Paypal I believe that the seller would have been able to do something when the fraud was discovered.
|
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 8, 2013 9:36:59 GMT -8
Adam. Understood. The point I was trying to make is that with Western Union there is no recourse for the seller in this instance. However with Paypal I believe that the seller would have been able to do something when the fraud was discovered. I agree entirely, except that the seller didn't actually ask for payment by Western Union hereself, that was the fraudsters' trick. Adam. |
|
|
|
Post by nosorog on Aug 8, 2013 10:28:12 GMT -8
In my opinion it was buyer's fault too. I understood buyer was a regular customer who always paid by bank transfer to Thailand and suddenly a transfer by Western Union to Dubai and he didn't question it? I think he should be partially responsible too.
|
|
|
|
Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 8, 2013 11:03:27 GMT -8
In my opinion it was buyer's fault too. I understood buyer was a regular customer who always paid by bank transfer to Thailand and suddenly a transfer by Western Union to Dubai and he didn't question it? I think he should be partially responsible too. We're not talking about only one buyer here! The dealer lost a large amount of money in total from a number of different customers, none of whom realised that anything was amiss. As far as I can understand even if one of the buyers were to e-mail to ask if the instructions were correct, as the fraudsters were monitoring the e-mail account they would have replied (and possibly did) saying the instructions were correct. Of course the dealer would not know that this was going on, presumably the fraudsters only needed to delete their e-mails to cover their tracks. The dealer told me that this had been going on for some time before she actually discovered why she wasn't receiving any money. She has changed her e-mail address from hotmail to gmail now, not that it is any safer if someone hacked the new address. Adam. |
|
|
|
Post by timmsyrj on Aug 9, 2013 10:03:40 GMT -8
Stringer, re your message above regarding contact from PayPal, I awoke one morning a couple of weeks ago to find two messages, both from PayPal, the first was a receipt for payment sent, $80 to a seller in the states, the second was PayPal saying that they noticed abnormal activity on my PayPal account, I immediately logged into my account( never follow any links in the emails) and found it indeed to be true, apparently an old email address from years ago was still active on my PayPal account and someone had hacked that, this is what the abnormal activity was, anyway after changes to my account I/d and a refund of the $80, things seem ok.
I hope..
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2013 10:34:55 GMT -8
Paypal are not as secure as they say they are, its just that they are the most convenient, I have been hacked on 3 different occasions for substantial amounts and although a full refund was given I could have done without the stress.
|
|
