Job-seekers being cheated

Cyber criminals target online applicants
Pritesh Basu
pritesh@thestatesman.net
Kolkata, 31 July
Finding online job-seekers easy prey to exploit, cyber criminals have come up with a new technique to lead them to bankruptcy.
The city police’s bank fraud section received a complaint recently in which a job aspirant alleged that her bank account had been hacked after she provided details to get herself registered on a job portal.
Subsequently, a huge amount of money has been siphoned off from her bank account in phases.
The job seeker had logged on to a job portal, www.sector.com (name changed so as to not hinder investigation into the matter) and registered herself on the portal with the expectation that it would help her to find a good job faster.
She had to provide her bank account details, including the debit card password, to pay the registration fees online. She had paid Rs 2,000 for registration.
"She was shocked when she found that money was being withdrawn from her bank account in phases without her consent. She was surprised to find reply mails within hours of the deductions, claiming that the money was deducted for other services, including resume analysis and profile linking with recruiters. Despite not using the services, the money had been deducted from her account," said a senior police officer.
Though the portal seeks to job-seekers, it also claims one can shop faster if he/she becomes a its member.
After repeated attempts, the victim managed to get an option on the webpage through which she applied for refund.
Interestingly, the portal authorities  asked her to provide details of another bank to get the refund.
"She provided the same with the expectation that she would get the money back  and saw some amount had been duped from the other bank account as well," the officer said, adding that steps have now been taken to restrict any kind of money transfer from both the accounts.
A senior city police officer said any Internet users must check the credentials of a website, as well as the address bar before keying in any password on the page.
"If an ‘s’ appears after "http" in the address bar, the website can be considered secure. One must avoid keying in any personal or financial details on a web page if the "s"
is missing," the officer said.  

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