Be on the Lookout for E-mail Scams
I received the following e-mail from the account of a close friend:
I’m writing this with tear in my eye because it might get to you too urgent but it’s because of the situation of things right now,I’m stuck in SPAIN with family right now,i came down here on vacation ,i was robbed, worse of it was that my bags, cash and credit cards were stolen of us at GUN POINT, it’s such a crazy experience for us, i need help flying back home, the authorities are not being 100% supportive but the good thing is that we still have our passports but don’t have enough money to get our flight ticket back home, please i need you to loan me $1,750 i promise to refund it back to you as soon as I’m back home, i promise.
My response to this e-mail was a mixture of concern and disbelief. My friend does travel and he could have been in Spain with his family. My friend is also a superb writer, and I know he’d never write a run-on sentence or use a lowercase “i” in an e-mail, even if he was in distress.
The e-mail signature included his legal first and last name, which made me suspicious, because I always call my friend by his nickname (and I’ve known him 15 years… why would he need to tell me his last name?).
Plus, the e-mail didn’t include any way of contacting him other than via his e-mail address.
I immediately e-mailed my friend via his work address and he got back to me right away, saying,
My accounts have been hacked. It’s a scam. Thanks for checking.
So, dear readers, this is a friendly reminder to be on high alert for e-mail scams, Twitter scams, Facebook scams, and other electronic scams that continually make their way around cyberspace.
If you receive a suspect e-mail or Direct Message from someone you know, NEVER click the link. Instead, contact the person from whom you received the message via an alternate channel and share the text of what you received from their account. The person can then change their password or take the appropriate steps to eliminate the hack.
What electronic scams have attempted to victimize you lately?
Great advice about scams. My concern is one of these days these scammers are going to learn better English and we won’t be as suspicious. A man contacted me recently on Facebook and seemed too interested in corresponding with me, saying he was a single male interested in marriage. Well, I’m single but I never put anything on my profile page or anywhere else indicating I wanted a romantic relationship. And then, within just a few minutes of chatting with him online he asked not only if I was single but wanted to know if I lived alone (yikes! I’m a fan of the tv show Medium and women are always being killed on it) and whether I owned or rented my house. Well, I told him all that was too personal, etc. Then he raved over my looks (hey, c’mon…too much!) and wanted to fly to see me. Of course I said no and then I got off the chat and immediately made it to where no one can see if I’m online. I KNOW some bad scam was about to happen if I continued with that…
Great advice about scams. My concern is one of these days these scammers are going to learn better English and we won’t be as suspicious. A man contacted me recently on Facebook and seemed too interested in corresponding with me, saying he was a single male interested in marriage. Well, I’m single but I never put anything on my profile page or anywhere else indicating I wanted a romantic relationship. And then, within just a few minutes of chatting with him online he asked not only if I was single but wanted to know if I lived alone (yikes! I’m a fan of the tv show Medium and women are always being killed on it) and whether I owned or rented my house. Well, I told him all that was too personal, etc. Then he raved over my looks (hey, c’mon…too much!) and wanted to fly to see me. Of course I said no and then I got off the chat and immediately made it to where no one can see if I’m online. I KNOW some bad scam was about to happen if I continued with that…
I’ll bet he would have asked you to pay for his plane ticket to come and “see you,” too!
I’ll bet he would have asked you to pay for his plane ticket to come and “see you,” too!