Sheriff Office Alerts Phishing Scam Making Round in the Internet

The Okaloosa Sheriff Office (Okaloosa County, Florida) is alerting net users about a phishing scam aiming the gulf coast, as reported in the site of fox10tv on March 19, 2012.

The scam initiates right from the inbox of a victim's account. The news of a victim's acquaintance in distress is conveyed over the message. It also claims that the victim has been robbed while on vacation in a distant land and presently out of pocket to pay even the bills and tickets for early return. Such victims are suddenly taken aback and not in a position to realize the intention behind such mails and mailer and moreover, easily gets convinced over the plot.

While explaining about the scam in details, Ashley Bailey, and Crime Prevention Specialist with Okaloosa Sheriff Office conferred that once the scammers hack an e-mail, it becomes easier to send message to everyone in the contact list, according to a report in the site fox10tv.

According to Ashley, scammers usually ask for US$ 3,000 or less to be wired to them.

It is not only Okaloosa Sheriff Office that has issued this warning. Also, the Santa Barbara Sheriff Office is alerting residents in Carpentaria (city in Santa Barbara county) to be aware of the potential scam emails.

Sheriff Officers says that several members of a community-based group have received an email recently from a person pretending to be a member of the organization.

The sender of the e-mail elaborates about their travel in the UK in a vacation, where they are victimized and snatched by robbers. According to officials, the e-mail states that the robbers have looted all the cash and credit cards except their passport. The sender then requests of cash for making various payments so that the victim could leave the country and return home.

Drew Sugars, the spokesman of the Sheriff Department at Santa Barbara said that as several people receives an e-mail, it is not possible for the Department to be aware of an actual victim of the scam, who initiates into sending the money, according to the statement published in noozhawk on March 19, 2012.

However, the security experts advised netizens to report the receipt of such mails to the local Police of the country immediately, so that criminals behind such activities can be taken to custody. One can access instant service from the Police on their hotline numbers.

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» SPAMfighter News - 3/27/2012