Phishing E-mail Attacks Nelson Mandela Foundation

The Nelson Mandela Foundation is warning people that a new e-mail scam is circulating online. The scam is soliciting money from people in the name of the Foundation, as reported by the NELSON MANDELA FOUNDATION on December 17, 2009 on its official website.

The appeal for donations in the scam e-mail tries to sound plausible. It gives details about 'Center of Memory' that apparently captures eternally the living as well as era of Nelson Mandela the founder.

The fake e-mail describes the money collected would be used for the creation of an unprecedented facility for people doing research on the living as well as era of Mandela.

Furthermore, the message shows an abrupt deterioration in its English quality. However, what it means in the last paragraph is - people may kindly and willingly donate for the survival of children in distress. It could be anything. Further, in the presence of God, everything is possible. So, people may donate at a given contact information through Western Union or money gram. They can send a reply to the e-mail, the paragraph indicates.

The message then finishes by extending pleasantries on behalf of 'Dr. Zulu Ken' whose India-based hotmail ID also appears in the message.

Commenting on the scam, Chief Executive of the Foundation, Achmat Dangor, stated that those behind it were doing everything unlawful as they didn't take Mr. Mandela's permission, as reported by Nzherald on December 18, 2009.

However, the NMF website states that although the Foundation welcomes people's voluntary grants to help it in its work, the Foundation is currently not processing donations via the Net.

Consequently, in case users wanted to donate, they needed to write to NMF on the Foundation's e-mail address or contact it through its phone numbers. Another option was to send the priced gifts to the NMF postal address as mentioned on its Internet site.

Finally, security analysts stated that e-mail scams had started since the 1990s when the Internet allowed people to use it for commercial purposes. Indeed, scammers have become increasingly sophisticated, with certain recent e-mail frauds preventing their easy detection like in the Nelson Mandela case.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 12/28/2009