A Brampton homeowner says he’s shocked after two wire transfers he was supposed to receive were blocked from his account by fraudsters.

“I’m still in shock,” Jai Walia, of Brampton, told CTV News Toronto. Walia owns two apartments and asks his tenants to pay their rent by electronic transfer.

In September, Walia was expecting two rents of $2,000 and $2,500. Even though the tenants sent him money, Walia said he never received their payment in his bank account.

Walia discovered his email account had been hacked and fell victim to a scam called Interac wire transfer fraud.

Walia said he doesn’t use automatic deposit but instead uses security questions. It appears the criminals used her email address to open a bank account and set up an automatic deposit, so any money sent to Walia would automatically go into the fraudsters’ account.

“How can a single email be used by two individuals, who have no connection,” Walia said. “I’m afraid what will happen if this happens again in other ways.”

Nick Biasini, a cybersecurity expert at Cisco Talos, said protecting your email address is just as important as protecting bank account and credit card passwords.

“Don’t overlook the importance of your email,” said Biasini, who added that a fraudster can see any service a person has signed up for once they hijack an address account electronic.

“If your opponent is in your email inbox, it will be very easy for them to start resetting every password you have and they will be the one receiving those reset links,” Biasini said.

To prevent Interac e-Transfer fraud, enable autodeposit, which Interac says is secure and convenient. Autodeposit helps protect against email fraud, it verifies that transactions are sent to the intended recipient and that money is automatically deposited without security questions.

Eventually, one of Walia’s tenants got his money back and paid the rent, but the other remains a victim of a $2,000 scam.

Walia has since changed her account to auto deposit to prevent this from happening again.

“I feel sorry for everyone who is being scammed because of these culprits,” Walia said.