An Indian-origin techie has become the latest victim of a spate of internet scams targeting Australians.
Iqbal Singh Jassal became the victim of an eBay scammer who responded to his ad for selling a laptop computer and created a series of fake emails, purportedly by Ebay and Pay Pal, in order to extort money from him.
A man who identified himself as Nicholas C Kowalski from the United States, upon buying Iqbal’s laptop posted for sale on Ebay asked it to be shipped to Nigeria to someone working in an American refinery there.
An unsuspecting Iqbal shipped the $500 laptop to Nigeria after receiving purported emails from both eBay and Pay Pal confirming that the buyer had paid for the item. A few days later, he received another purported email from eBay informing him that his shipped item had been seized by the customs in Nigeria, and he was required to pay US $420 or the item would be destroyed.
That’s when Iqbal decided to call up eBay. To his utter shock, he was told eBay did not send him any email regarding the payment.
“Everything looked authentic. There was no reason for me to suspect anything was wrong,” Iqbal told SBS Punjabi.
He also received a purported email from Nigerian Customs, asking him to pay $420 via a Money Gram outlet.
Realizing that he had become a victim of a scam, Iqbal approached the South Australian police. However, he was told it was not their jurisdiction and he was asked to contact ACORN.
“I only wish eBay had been a little more careful and sounded me off when I contacted them right after the sale,” rues Iqbal.
Police have issued several alerts recently regarding such scams operating through websites such as Gumtree and eBay.
