Internet users be warned

image from: http://www.kyleeggleston.com/

By MATTHEW VARI

Wednesday, July 3, 2013 (Midweek Chronicle, PNG)

CITIZENS are being warned to be mindful when making purchases over the internet.

That is a warning from a prominent citizen, and former government bureaucrat, who found out the hard way when he discovered over K10, 000 was missing from his bank account.

It all began when he ordered his usual diet supplements online, which he had been doing for years now.

When he went online to make the order last week- his search took him to a duplicated version of the site he normally uses.

The site then duplicated his visa card details and the ‘phishers’ (people who design websites to gain access to data and scam people) swindled his funds without his knowledge.

When he discovered this and contacted his local bank- transactions were traced half way around the globe in the United Kingdom.

A transaction was made on Thursday last week, to the amount of €2,000 (euros), and then a slightly larger sum was used on Monday.

All payments were made to a United Arabs Emirates airline to pay for tickets by the scammers.

Unfortunately the money had all been used and there was no way of retrieving it.

He urged all internet users to be mindful of giving their card retails online and constantly check their balance after making transactions on the web.