Fraud help

buffalobill

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2004
Messages
861
Reaction score
34
Location
Joburg, South Africa.
Hi guys I need help and advice. My wife is an attorney and recently got defrauded of a large amount of money. It was the proceeds of a property transaction. The client sent her a change of banking details email with a copy of the confirmation from FNB. She's no dummy and called the client to confirm the email. Unknown to them the email itself was intercepted, altered and forwarded. As a consequence the money went into the fraudster's account. A while later when the money hadn't arrived they realised. It took a while for the Standard Bank fraud division to come back but the money's gone.
I've got the IT guys at the office looking at the logs to see where and how it was rerouted. I have my own .com domain but it's hosted by Gmail and the client sent from Gmail. We've got some IT guys doing a forensic audit on my wife's computer to make sure she wasn't compromised on her side and that will stand up in court. They say it happens a lot with Gmail, so be warned. The email was sent sometime about 2.30pm on a Friday afternoon and arrived 1.04am the next morning. The email address was marginally changed but difficult to spot.
We've laid a charge with the police but have little confidence in the Fairland police station which did its best to avoid taking the case and we haven't been able to get hold of the investigating officer in a week. In the meantime I've been able to get hold of the account holder's name but that's probably of little value since it's probably a stolen ID. If you want to know how, do a cash deposit at an FNB ATM and at the last process it gives you the account holder's name then cancel.
Any further assistance and advice would be welcome. Any contacts with the police's fraud unit for example?
 
I hope your wife has professional indemnity insurance covering fraud because the AIIF won't cover this.
 
Client unlikely because she's a long-standing one but may be compromised. No professional liability. We found out IAFF doesn't cover internet fraud. WTF?
 
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