Nigerians dupe partners with credit card cloning

In yet another instance of fraudulent operations by Nigerians
civilians, as many as three IT hardware resellers from Ghaziabad have been duped
by a group of these citizens in what is termed as a 'credit card cloning'
case. The same group has also visited Delhi's IT hub Nehru Place a number of
times, but were unsuccessful due to the cautious channel community.

A Nigerian citizen, Brenda J Handa, posed as a customer and
went to purchase high-end laptops within Ghaziabad. He went to Zee Enterprises,
Acme Computers and Computer Gallery in the city and purchased as many as four
laptops in a single day besides some mobile phones and printers as well.

Rajeev Garg of Adhar Computech is considering himself lucky
as the same guy came to his shop first and asked for some laptops. "This
guy came up to me and asked for these high-end laptops. I got suspicious, as he
only wanted to pay by credit card. Though I feel that I was lucky that he did
not shop from our company, I feel sad for the people who were duped," he
added.

The cheat has duped Zee Computers of Rs 98,000, Acme
Computers of Rs 36,000 and Computer Gallery of Rs 36,000. All these IT hardware
items were purchased with the help of an ICICI Bank's credit card. Initially
when resellers approached the bank for collecting the money, the bank denied
payment. However it has now paid up the money, claimed the Ghaziabad-based
resellers.

"It was a bad experience for all the companies in
Ghaziabad. This person from Nigeria came to our shop and asked for some laptops
just like a usual customer. We gave him the products and he gave his credit card
to us. It was quite usual for us but when we went to the bank to collect the
money, they said that it was not a valid card and the card was cloned. However,
because of the fact that we had a photocopy of his passport we were able to get
the money form the bank. Still there are some people from Noida who are
struggling to get the payment from Bank," informs Sanjeev Mittal from Zee
Computers.

The Nigerian is on the run as the bank has already approached
police to arrest the culprit. However, it is not just Ghaziabad but even Nehru
Place, which had a close shave with the Nigerian in question.