Scam E-Mail Preys on Innerleithen Councilor

Gillian Steele community councilor of Innerleithen said that an Internet fraud had recently victimized her. Peeblesshirenews.com published this on July 19, 2011.

It maybe mentioned that Innerleithen is one tiny city within the Scottish Borders' Tweeddale community area.

Says Steele, it simply astonished her when she started getting anxious telephone calls her family and friends made to enquire if she was alright. Peeblesshirenews.com reported this on July 19, 2011.

Apparently, scammers hacked into her private electronic mail account and used it for dispatching one distressed message to all the ids in her address book asserting that robbers stole everything from her -money, credit cards and mobile phone.

Further, to facilitate Steele's contacts with an address to send cash to, the fraudsters gave an address and phone-number of the hotel where Steele's friends were lied she was staying.

Steele stated that she was very worried because she got numerous telephone-calls, which people made conjecturing what was happening. In return she had to assure everyone separately that she wasn't holidaying in Valencia, instead living and doing fine as also working in Walkerburn (Scotland).

Alarmingly, according to security specialists, the scam, which attacked Steele, is called the "stranded traveler's scam" alternatively the "419 scam." They add that it is one popular incarnation of the Nigerian scam or advance fee fraud.

This scam, explain the specialists, involves an e-mail, which's hijacked and which the scammers use for dispatching desperate messages to all the addresses that make the victimized account holder's friends list. Moreover, it's stated inside the messages that the recipient's buddy, who's traveling abroad, has been mugged; consequently requires him to send funds just like it has been claimed in the above instance.

Amusingly, the specialists state that friends in problem when abroad seek help by calling American Express or visiting the U.S. Consulate, not by e-mailing messages, in order that it may save one's acquaintances from getting bothered with the above kind of scam e-mails.

Finally, the aforementioned incident follows soon after Peter Lawless, Councilor of Eton Wick (London) and Keith Hutson, Councilor of Calderdale (England) disclosed that they'd been victimized with like scam e-mails.

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» SPAMfighter News - 7/27/2011