New E-mail Scam Tricks Victims into Wiring Money

William J. Kilfoil (Chief of Police, Port Washington) has alerted the residents against an ongoing e-mail scam. This fake e-mail is sent by an anonymous person stating that he came to London for a short trip but unluckily he was robbed at the hotel, where he stayed. All his assets including cell phone, cash and credit card were stolen but he still had his passport with him.

The e-mail further states that he had reported the incident to the Police and the embassy but they were not helpful enough and his flight would leave in few hours from now but the hotel manager won't let him leave unless he settle down all payments; need help.

These types of messages are sent from hacked e-mail accounts. Further, hackers forward the message to all the contacts in the victim's e-mail account, whose contact list is then removed.

In a similar trend, some recipients are getting e-mails with subject line as "Help!!!!" and the mail tells an extremely sad story of being robbed while overseas, and asks for immediate financial help to purchase a return ticket to home or settle hotel bills.

Paul Bresson, Spokesman (Washington), said that the FBI had noticed a spike in complaints about the scam and had released two public service announcements regarding it in the recent months, as reported by SFGate on August 25, 2010.

The Port Washington Police advises recipients not to reply to these types of e-mails. At the same time, The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) - a collaboration of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and National White Collar Crime Center also recommended recipients to always first confirm the information prior to sending any money.

The IC3 in July reported that netizens were cheated out of huge sums of money by hackers who hacked either the victims' social networking account or personal e-mail account. Those who believe that they fell prey to this kind of scam can report the mishap to the IC3 website at www.IC3.gov, which relates complaints for prospective referral to the suitable law enforcement agency.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 9/2/2010