My officemate was surprised to receive an e-mail from our client requesting for money. She became suspicious since it was really unusual since a client would never send us an e-mail like that. She immediately called the person and it was confirmed that the e-mail hackers logged on to her e-mail address and changed the password . The person can no longer logged on to her e-mail and everybody in her address book received the same letter requesting for money.
These hackers are really getting creative with their craft. Here’s the content of that e-mail which I retyped in toto including the wrong spellings and grammar.
Hello,
Please i am in a Critical situation right now which I will need your urgent response and I know this is a little strange but I recently make a trip abroad to united kingdom (london) unannounced. But unfortunately for me all my money got stolen at the hotel where I lodged due to a robbery incident happened in the hotel.
Life is not fair at the moment with me. It was suppose to be a secret trip abroad for a Conference before this incident happened. Currently all services has ceased. I can not call or receive calls. Even food has not been served. I look pale, weak and dirty. You know your true friends when you are in time of need.
I am confiding in you help me out soon. Please I want you to help me with money so please can you send me 1450pounds so I can settle all my bills here and return back. I would refund it back to you immediately I get home.
Kindly help me send the money through Western Union Money Transfer with my name. Its really urgent for me as I don’t know what to do right now than to leave here soonest you send it to me and I will pay you back immediately I get home.
Please help me send it to the hotel address below with my name and please keep this to yourself only.
NAME:
ADDRESS: Lovelace House Hageerston Road
STATE: London
POSTCODE: E84HR
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
Thanks a lot for your kindness,
I will really appreciate your quick response.
I Googled the address above and it is the address of Ben Agency company Lt. I don’t know if the company is aware that their address is being used by hackers. My officemate replied to the e-mail sender telling it to stop their scam and they will be reported to the authorities. Lo and behold! Whoever was on the other end replied that it’s not a scam and asking when the money can be sent.
Receiving Nigerian scam emails was a little annoying but to have your email hacked? It’s something to be worried about. E-mail hackers use sophisticated technology. Those of us who are non-techies will have no other means of defence but common sense. If you spend a lot of time online you should protect yourself from hackers and identity theft. So how do we avoid being victims of these hackers?
- Use a password that is hard to guess. It’s better to have an alphanumeric password. In choosing a secret question, make sure that it is really a secret and only you know the answer.
- Do not give out your password, period.
- If you’re checking your e-mail in internet cafes, make sure to logout always.
- Change your password regularly.
- Have a copy of your address book just in case you need to inform your contacts that you were hacked
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
The same thing happened to my friend today. Awful, annoying, and smt to be very worried about….
This situation happened to me around 2 weeks ago. Apparently, my wife’s aunt who’s working in the US sent me a personal (my name was stated on it) email asking me to immediately lend her some money stating that she’s not in the US as of that time and she badly needed the amount.
We immediately informed her about it coz i suspected that her msn email acct was hacked because the mail was completely written in English unlike the usual email she’s sent me before which were in the usual Tagalog-English she’s accustomed to.
Yeah, this kind of scam is really scary especially if the supposed victim is new to web scams like this.
Btw, thanks for visiting my blog.
Keep the info going…
Cheers!
Thanks for visiting Dion. I was looking for bloggers from Bacolod/Neg Occ area so I landed on your blog. It’s scary gid. What if those persons receiving the emails were not familiar with these scams and actually send money? It’s important to always secure our online identities.
I received the same email. Thanks for the info.
Well I hope it won’t happen to anyone again.
It happened to me yesterday. IN SPAIN.
I send a message to yahoo telling them.
Should I go to the police?
I think you should go to the police Paula. At least had it on record and if laws on internet security in Spain are in place, the police will know what to do.