Pınar Öcal Gökbörü Replies to John Groaves' Lost Money Hacking Case

Pınar Öcal Gökbörü Replies to John Groaves' Lost Money Hacking CasePınar Öcal Gökbörü has replied on FaceBook concerning John Groaves’ Lost Money Hacking Case. John lost £20 000 because Pınar Öcal Gökbörü was unable to transfer all the money in one go as her ‘bank has a daily limit for international transfers‘.

NCFP was stunned that this limit was so low (about £32 000 it would seem) as it would severely restrict her ability to transfer money to the UK for sales of luxury houses with prices of £250 000 or more. It would take weeks to send money to clients, creating even more opportunities for a scam to take place.

The verbatim text of the FaceBook conversation including a threat to sue John Groaves in the UK, for damaging her reputation by telling the story of how he ended up losing £20 000, is included below.

Pınar

Is anyone available to chat?
Dear admin can we talk about the publishing you made about our law firm?

North Cyprus Free Press

Hi Pınar, not much to talk about except to say that the article is based upon what has already been published in Cyprus Today with the addition of John Groaves evidence. John has asked that we remove from Google and NCFP all evidence of the article and review when he is reimbursed for his loss. Please contact him about this. We await his response.

Pınar
What has been published in Cyprus Today is very biased and does not reflect the true side of what has happened. It was Johns email that was hacked and i was not the only party who received emails frim his hacker, the estate agent involved also received emails from the hacker. John admitted on numerous telephone and written conversations that he could not access his emails account and then got his grandson to sort his account. Since it was his emails that were hacked, i cannot be expected to reimburse him his loss which arose due lack of security on his end. This incident was reported to the metropolitan police which i believe the investigation is still ongoing. However John preferred to chase me for payment instead of following up on the police investigation.

Pınar
Half of the sale proceeds were sent to his account which we already had the details in our files. We then received instructions from John (or from the hacker) to send the remaining of the remaining of the payment to a different account. As lawyers we are obliged to follow written instructions which we receive from our clients. And this is exactly what has happened. As a law firm we had followed the written instructions received from our client. The fact that his email account was hacked and the fact that these emails were sent by his hacker is unfortunately something that we cannot spot or in fact no body can.

Pınar
Please note that we have evidence and written statements from John to show that it was his email that was hacked. Plus what he is claiming that i told him over the telephone is horrible and definately does not reflect the truth. Therefore please feel free to pass this onto John that since what he is publishing does not reflect the truth and that he is trying damage my reputation in the event that he does not withdraw these articles both from your web page and facebook page and/or elsewhere i will have no option but to sue him for defamation both in the Trnc and in the UK. If what happened to John was the fault of our law firm, we would have no objection to reimburse him. Since the incident occurred due to lack of security on his end we cannot be expected to pay for something that is not our fault. This is simply not fair.

Pınar
Many thanks in advance.

North Cyprus Free Press
Hi Pinar, what was unusual about this case was the law firm deciding to not pay all monies in one transaction and also the firm not confirming the change of bank before transferring the second tranche of monies. John is not computer savvy and cannot be called upon to make a judgement as to how the email came to be sent – i.e. whether from his email account being hacked or whether someone taking advantage of your law firm creating a situation whereby this incident was possible. I believe John is arranging for a Press Release to be sent to some of the major UK newspapers. I’m going to publish your response if that is OK by you. As you are going to sue him in the UK it would be interesting to know which part of his article you would like removed because it is untrue. I believe that in making this offer, John would be seen to be complying was your request to take down any untruths. However, the gist of John’s complaint would be to warn that, unlike in the UK, should this happen again in your law practice to one of your clients then they would be unprotected.

Pınar
First of all the funds were sent in two transactions because our bank has a daily limit for international transfers. Therefore this was not our decision but the bank security level. Secondly we are not obliged to vonfirm bank details. We are obliged to comply with written instructions from clients and that is exactly what we did. Thirdly, i agree that none of us are computer savy however as soon as we found out about this we got our security system checked and it was confirmed that our computer system was safe and the hacker was on the other end. Don’t you think it is unusual that John could not access his email account during my conversations with the hacker and then gained access again once the hacker got the money. The entire story is not true. It was not my system that got hacked, it was his. I never swore at him and all i tried to do was to help him reach relevant points of contacts in the UK as the Trnc police was not interested. Therefore i want the full article and any other press releases removed. If he wants to warn other people he can start with securing his pc rather than making false stories and damaging peoole’s reputation. Please note that we are a very busy law firm and do not have time to enter into protracted arguments/discussions either with John or with people sending comments to your posts. You may post my response as we do not have anything to hide. Please also that in Trnc we are not obliged to take out professional indemnity insurance unlike in the Uk and to be honest i do not think there are any insurance companies offering this product. Even if we did have such insurance John still would not be covered and compensated because that insurance only compensates clients in the event of professional negligenge/ when what happened is that fault of the law firm. Can you personally think an insurance company would reimburse a client when their emails are hacked? I cannot see that happening not only here but also in the Uk. I have now provided you with full facts of this case. By the way may I please have your name? Thank you

North Cyprus Free Press

My name is Pandora S Box, I wrote the article. I have given both you and John Groaves the opportunity to comment and John has said he is willing to meet you in a UK court and to swear that all that he has said is the truth. If you forward to John the email you received, purporting to be from John, then we will be able to forensically analyse it to determine if you have been a victim of spoofing or whether John’s email account has been hacked. In order to have been sent from John’s account a copy would need to have been retained in the Send folder but no such evidence has been found so far. The copy of the email you sent as proof that you received it has no return address, that’s needed to determine whether you have been spoofed. Only the original email is able to give that information, plus there are other details which determine its source – so I’ve been told by our Cyber Security Expert.

Make up your own mind Readers.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

7 comments to Pınar Öcal Gökbörü Replies to John Groaves’ Lost Money Hacking Case

  • Polly Marples

    How very odd that Pinar’s bank should have such a low limit for International transfers. Certainly none of my friends who had occasion to transfer much larger amounts never encountered such limits from any TRNC Bank and they were just private individuals not professionals as Pinar is. I think the next question that should be put to Pinar is..which bank do you use?

    Pinar claims there was no onus on her to check the authenticity of the e mail ..that was clearly a scam, yet it was asking for money to be sent to an account in a country that John does not live in. I disagree, a good advocate, acting in the best interest of her client would have and to not do so was grossly negligent of her. Now I know advocates in the TRNC claim they do not have a duty of care to their clients…but the fact that a client can sue and advocate for negligence makes a nonsense of that claim.

    As you say Pandora…make up your own mind readers…well I know who I believe.

  • Ian Edwards

    A sad but unsurprising story. Difficult to believe that even in a third world country a so-called professional organisation is not compelled to have professional indemnity cover, and that a practising member of that so-called profession makes no effort to check obviously suspicious changes in email addresses.

    Also unsurprising is the tactic often employed by legal firms of threatening legal action as a means of defending themselves against any charges of malpractice, valid or otherwise.

  • Polly Marples

    Hello Ian.

    You are right, the first thing the TRNC advocates do is to try intimidate anyone who dares question their actions. Libel writs rain down like confetti. It is obvious this advocate was negligent at best and maybe more at worst. A decent advocate (if one exists in TRNC) would have felt honour bound to reimburse her client, but of course we all know that will not happen. If I were John, I would be happy to fight this woman in a UK court…a TRNC one would be a waste of time and should be ignored…the old adage, they look after their own comes to mind.

  • Ian Edwards

    Yeah, g’day Polly. Nice to see you’re still up and about…me too. You’re right about that question re which bank was it that has this supposedly low limit on daily transfers. The lawyer only said that “our bank has a daily limit for international transfers”, but we must be permitted to assume it is of the order of GBP30,000, otherwise presumably the whole 60,000 would have been transferred in one go. If the limit is larger than that, it then begs the question of why was only half the amount transferred at first?

    My nasty suspicious mind also wonders if it can be definitely established that the spurious email address the second tranche was sent to was in fact somewhere in Ireland, and not perhaps somewhere in TRNC….

  • Polly Marples

    Yes I am still around as is Pauline….poor Agile passed away in May 2016. Hope all is well with you.

    I agree this stinks to high heaven

  • Ian Edwards

    Hey Polly, on an unrelated matter, my little 14-villa development is under a legal summons for boundary encroachment, and all owners have been advised to engage lawyers to address the problem. Would you know of an honest, reliable and professional lawyer you could recommend? Someone perhaps like Naomi Mehmet?

    Or is there no such beast in the TRNC?

  • Polly Marples

    Oh no…not Naomi Mehmet…she is the one who got Pauline caught up in all my problems in the first place….as soon as the six years I had to sue her for negligence was up, she sacked me as a client. She is not able to take a case to court and has to use someone who is. The nearest you will get to an honest advocate in the TRNC is Bugra Akter..you will find his firm advertised by googling his name.

    I left in 2013 so there will be some younger ones I do not know now. Do not use Hasan Alkan or BOysan Boyra…both bent in my opinion.