My Fraud Ordeal

18th February 2021 proved catastrophic for me. I fell prey to a phishing attack and lost close to Rs.63,000 of my hard earned savings which would have been 3 months of breather for my family. I’m sharing my experience in the hope that You do not fall into similar traps. 

I have been out of work since June 2020 and have been actively looking for one. I was approached by someone for a job opportunity claiming to be a recruiter of a well known Indian employment website - Naukri.com. The recruiter told me all the right things and asked all the right questions - told me that the call is from the company’s Mumbai branch, asked if I was still looking for a job, told me that they had found my job profile on Naukri’s website, wanted to know the kind of roles I’m looking for, that they found my profile matching the opportunities available at my preferred locations, that if I was okay with it they will set up interviews for me starting upcoming Monday, my last drawn package and what I was expecting. Until now nothing sounded unusual. But then came the golden egg!

The recruiter told me to fill an application form that will be sent to the potential employers along with my work profile. The application form will cost Rs.10 and will be valid for 6 months. It is the usual duration for which employment websites charge and provide profile specific job search services. The job market has been cut-throat since the past year because of COVID related job terminations and it has been extremely difficult to land job interviews. So the promise that the recruiter will begin setting up interviews with me so promptly, was music to my ears! I was sent the official looking website link on my phone number. I was to select the package for 6 months and make the payment. Pretty easy and usual, right? The recruiter promised to send over the available and matching job descriptions of the Company openings immediately after.

I opened the website link on my computer while the recruiter promised to stay on the call with me to help me through the process. The website had Naukri’s logo and name on it and looked like the actual website. The application form asked me to create a user ID and password of my choice and fill in some general details that anyone would mention on their resume and job profile - Name, date of birth and address. There was also space for Adhaar and PAN Numbers, which I denied sharing at the time. To this, the recruiter told me politely that I need not worry about them right now and that it would be okay if I share the hardcopies of the documents directly with the employer later, if asked. The page where I was supposed to select the services package looked similar to other portals I have chosen a package and made payments on. There was nothing fishy until this point. And then it all began falling like dominoes.

Long story short, the payment page reflected the amount of Rs.10, which I thought I was authorising. But in reality the entire balance from both my bank and credit card accounts were debited. They were kind enough to leave some pennies in my accounts though! When I told the recruiter that there has been a wrong debit, I was told that there has been a mismatch at their end due to which my payment got mixed up with someone else’s. The recruiter constantly apologised, told me that it was a system issue at their end, that I should not panic, that they will help me with this issue and will return all my money back - even if it would mean transferring the entire amount from their own bank account. Then, in the middle of this panic driven verbal exchange, the call went silent. It took me a couple of seconds to realise what had happened. It would be an understatement to say that I went numb!

I immediately called my bank, raised a fraud dispute on the transactions, suspended my accounts and blocked my cards. I went to the Cyber Crime Police station of my area and filed an FIR for it. I also sent an email to Naukri.com informing them about my experience. What I heard back from them only confirmed my fears. Naukri.com’s team reverted that the website was fraudulent and denied the number from which I had received the call to be one of their authorised company phone numbers.

Through this ordeal, I learnt a new lesson and made a few observations of my own:

• The phishing warning emails, messages and notifications we receive from banks and other legitimate 3rd parties, asking not to share our personal and bank details, do not begin to explain how phishing happens. Phishing has now become a psychological game where you are tricked into willingly sharing such information. The fraudsters no longer literally directly ask for the card or account details. Banks don’t have any provision of asking for a reversal or stopping a payment on psychological grounds.

• Tricks are played on your psychological weak points and vulnerabilities which every human being has. With the current employment situation after the COVID onset, these vulnerabilities have heightened. Online frauds and phishing attacks in the name of providing a job have considerably increased since COVID.

• It has become increasingly difficult to differentiate the legitimate people and business from the frauds. If we do not share certain bank details on 3rd party websites, a lot of necessary online transactions will become difficult.

• Some form of our personal and financial information is always available online - paying bills, online purchases, coupons, banks, employment websites, online portals like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It’s not that the fraudsters are going to declare themselves and ask for our permission before using this information. The downside of it is that hiding some of these details creates issues for the genuine parties.

• These fraudsters seem to have an annual turnover target as well similar to other businesses and are fiercely working towards achieving it. Whichever friend I shared this experience with told me about their own encounters and losses or of their acquaintances's.

But contrary to this, 2-3 days after this incident, I realised in retrospect that I do have some blessings I can still count. I still have my family with me, a roof over my head and food on my table. I do have some deposit accounts maturing towards the end of March and some cash at home I had stashed away and forgotten, which I miraculously found while searching for something else. It may not be much, but it'll do for the time being. I’ll figure out the rest as and when it comes along. I have become more alert when I’m taking calls from unknown numbers claiming to be prospective employers. Though only another test of time will tell how prepared I am. I also learned that during times of adversity, it is Humane to become absorbed in our everyday problems - encircling within our Unconscious Perspective. But in doing so we also lose sight of what we have. We forget that not everything is completely lost, ever! In such times, it always pays to take a step back, breathe and count your blessings - quite like the song ‘My Favorite Things’ from the movie ‘The Sound of Music’. So until I find a new hope, I will hang on to the hope that something better is coming my way.