Beware of fraudsters getting wind of your investment plans. They can do so by hacking into your e-mail or that of your financial adviser, resulting in you unwittingly paying money into a fraudster's bank account instead of the financial services provider's. This happened to Durban psychologist Felicity Tonkinson late last year, when she was defrauded of R1.2-million while attempting to make an offshore investment. Tonkinson describes the trauma of losing such a large sum of money so late in her working life as devastating. "I was not negligent with my personal information nor the safety of my computer. To be robbed of your financial security is comparable to being psychologically mugged," she says. Tonkinson fell for "man-in-the-middle" fraud - when a fraudster intercepts communication, usually e-mails, between you and a trusted party. The fraudster poses as one of the parties and supplies his own bank details to divert payment to himself. In Tonkinson's case, the fraudster, posing ...
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