eBay crooks stung me in £37,000 scam
Fraudsters racked up almost £40,000 of online bids after hacking into a young woman's eBay account.
Leanne Mitchell, 22, logged on to her computer to find her eBay account details had been changed.
She was stunned to find someone had used her account to make bids and had racked up £37,000 on electrical goods to be sent to Nigeria.
Thankfully, Leanne, of Culter, Aberdeenshire, hasn't been left out of pocket by the scam.
She said yesterday: "There were successful bids for 37 PlayStation 3s and three mobile phones. But there were also a further five bids on PlayStation 3s.
"It's scary. I have no idea what happened. They've got a hold of my password somehow. It's obviously really easy. I'm just lucky they didn't manage to spend my money."
The much-desired PlayStation 3s are selling for about £1000 on eBay in the run up to Christmas.
Staff at the site contacted Leanne to make her aware of the scam.
But she had to spend hours emailing all 36 sellers to let them know what had happened.
She said: "Some of them were really nice but others said I had to pay fees for the money they had lost.
"I use eBay every day but now I'm going to be more careful and I just want others to know ab out the risks."
Financial crime stemming from Nigeria has become a huge problem in recent years. A string of scams, card fraud and money laundering has cost the UK economy an estimated £150billion a year.
In a report on the scams, Michael Peel, of research group Chatham House, said: "The scale and scope of Nigerian-related financial crime highlights critical wider failures in the way British authorities tackle fraud, corruption and money laundering.
"Despite important but limited reforms, criminal networks and corporate bribery are still flourishing."
Recently, Aberdeen business leaders urged people not to give personal details away on attractive job offers sent by email for fear of identity theft.