Passage to India ends up with police investigation

Police are investigating claims that a man posing as a travel agent defrauded an Invercargill couple of more than $3000. Priti Rathod and her partner, Jeff Burfield-Mills, said they had previously successfully booked travel through an employee they knew as Naresh at travel firm Eco Travels.

They emailed him at the same generic Royal Oak branch email address in March, asking to arrange travel to India.

He supplied them with flights on Singapore Airlines, at a cost of about $3300.

Then, in June, they needed to change their plans and tried to contact him.

Rathod said he started to dodge them, claiming to be unwell, not at work, and not picking up the phone.

They contacted Eco Travels directly and were told Naresh had left the company. Although they had handed over the money, their tickets had never been booked.

She said she assumed the itinerary they were sent was photoshopped.

Rathod said the bank account number they were given was the former employee’s personal one.

She had contacted her bank to see whether the money could be retrieved.

After the police were contacted, the man returned $2699 to the couple, leaving $600 owing.

‘‘We feel that for our flight tickets the company is responsible as how can an employee use the company account details like email address, signature and presenting him as an Eco Travels employee after leaving the job?’’ Rathod said.

Martin Cocker, of Netsafe, said the fact that the person who took the couple’s money was in New Zealand would help their chances of pursuing a case.

It was up to a business to terminate a departing employee’s access to email.

In an email, Eco Travels said the man had been employed to set up the Royal Oak branch and had taken advantage of the situation.

It was being investigated and the company was trying to help the customer.

Police spokeswoman Yogesh Ambalaghan said: ‘‘Police are following a positive line of inquiry and as it’s an active investigation I have no further updates.’’