Internet scammers might be after your money

In a break with tradition, I am going to try to include a post that may actually be of interest to people other than my friends and family.

This morning as I was checking my email I found that I had received a message from my father. He was forwarding me a message from a mutual acquaintance that looked a little suspicious. As soon as I read the message I noticed that it was almost identical to messages associated with new scam I recently read about.

The scam works by obtaining access to an email account. Message are then sent to the person's contact list. The message suggests that the account holder is traveling and run into trouble overseas. The idea is that you send the person money to help them get out of a bind. In this case, they were looking for about $2000 dollars, supposedly to cover hotel costs so the person could have their travel documents returned to them.

Of course all of this was a lie.

The person from whom the message was supposedly sent was not in trouble (though the matter was confused because the person was traveling, giving the message an air or reality).

Fortunately, in this case, the family of the person in whose name the scam was being committed figured out that it was a scam almost instantly. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to determine if any of the person's contact's were duped as the family doesn't have access to his email account.

Anyway, just thought that you might want to be on the look out for such email or at least know that they are circulating, seemingly with some frequency (later in the day a similar scam was reported upon by CBC Newfoundland).

I think what disgusts me about this particular scam, unlike the Nigerian money scam, is that this one plays on people's goodwill towards their friends (instead of personal greed). Sadly, such a scam is likely going to make it more difficult for people to get money while overseas when they actually need it.