Aiken Woman Fall to Nigerian E-mail Scam

As per a news report from Aiken, South Carolina (US), a woman namely, Larkin Steele, recently fell victim to an online e-mail scam.

The news report revealed that Steele received excessive phone calls from her friends, and relatives on August 27, 2009 afternoon asking about her well-being. Some of her office colleagues also called her to know about her welfare.

The reason for receiving flood of phone calls was a personalized e-mail that had been forwarded to her friends and co-workers in her name, telling that she was stranding in Europe and was in trouble.

Steele said that when she tried to login her e-mail account, access was denied. But when she checked her other e-mail account, she was stunned to find that hacker had actually sent her an e-mail with a title "HELP PLEASE!", as reported by nbcaugusta on August 28, 2009.

In the beginning of the text, the e-mail asked the recipient about her family well-being and then apologized for not informing the recipient about her visit to England to attend a seminar. Thereafter, the e-mail illustrated the whole episode of how she had lost her wallet and asked them to transfer her money via Western Union.

In other words, fraudsters had planned the scam so meticulously that it appeared perfectly legitimate and authentic to the recipient. They had thought that people would get panic and come forward to help Steele by sending her requested amount.

Steele in her reaction to the e-mail scam said that she has taken every possible action to protect her acquaintances so that they come to know it is the work of fraudsters who want to make money using her name. She doesn't want anybody to be ensnared by this scam.

While the investigation to dig out the root of scam is underway, Aiken County investigators said that the scammers could be residing in a foreign country from where they had been running this scam.

Security experts have called this scam a variant of orthodox Nigerian scam, popularly known as 419 scams.

Steele has advised others that they should keep changing their password frequently and use the most difficult ones which are hard to guess for hackers and other online scammers.

Related article: ACMA Unleashes SpamMATTERS - the New anti-spam Button

» SPAMfighter News - 9/11/2009