A 25 year-old man has admitted he failed to return more than $6,000 after a woman was defrauded into transferring the money to his bank account through an e-mail ‘phishing’ scam.

In Magistrates’ Court this morning, Norris Wilkinson, of Court Street, pleaded guilty to dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit.

Phishing is a process used by scammers masquerading as a trustworthy individual or company to attain personal details from unwitting members of the public relating to their bank account information, usernames, passwords and other sensitive details.

Stacy Grant was duped into sharing her bank account details after receiving an e-mail requesting she update her information from someone purporting to represent Clarien Bank on May 16, prosecutor Maria Sofianos told the court.

Three days later, Clarien Bank phoned Ms Grant enquiring if she made a wire transfer of $6,120 from her savings account. Ms Grant informed Clarien Bank that she had not transferred the money nor authorised anyone to transfer money from that account.

After filing relevant paperwork with the bank and reporting the incident to police, Clarien Bank fraud investigator, Daymel Simons, reviewed transaction records and saw that the money had been transferred from Ms Grant’s account to Wilkinson’s account.

He also discovered that more than $5,000 had been withdrawn from Wilkinson’s account and that it had already been frozen by the bank.

Wilkinson was then contacted by the bank and informed that the money transferred to his account was a fraudulent transaction and asked him to return the money. After failing to do so, $773.42 of the previously frozen funds were credited back to Ms Grant, leaving $5,346.58 yet to be returned.

Wilkinson was arrested by police on May 30 on suspicion of retaining a wrongful credit.

During the police interview, Wilkinson told officers that he had befriended a woman overseas on Facebook. After messaging each other over a number of weeks, Wilkinson said the woman told him she was an architect and that her boss had wanted to start a business in Bermuda.

Wilkinson explained that he sent his bank account number to the woman but was informed that it didn’t go through.

He said he then attended Clarien Bank and reactivated his bank account which was dormant, at which point the wire transfer was successful. He then admitted to withdrawing $5,550 and on the same day receiving a call from Clarien Bank informing him of the fraudulent transaction.

Wilkinson also told police that he knew something was not right with the money transfer, and that he did not make any effort to return the fraudulent cash, choosing instead to spend it on outstanding bills.

Duty counsel Leanord DeRosa-Holder said that Wilkinson was not the one who sent out the original phishing e-mail, and intimated that Wilkinson have been a victim of the scam himself.

“Well you know what they say: when a scammer gets scammed, it makes God laugh,” responded Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner.

Mr Warner ordered a social inquiry report and will sentence Wilkinson on July 29.

Wilkinson was released on $5,000 bail with one surety.