Over the past couple of days a friend mine was scammed by a hacker who got into his Facebook and Gmail accounts and stole his address book and deleted all of his emails. The hacker then used the address book to impersonate my friend and pretended to be in trouble in the UK. He said that while he and his family were visiting the UK over Christmas they were mugged at gunpoint and all of the money and credit cards were stolen. He said he needed money to pay for the hotel bill and other expenses. Concerned about my friend, I responded saying that I would help pay his hotel bill.
The scammer responded that it would be better if I were to wire the money to him via Western Union, which I did. Western Union told me that the funds would be available to be picked up at any Western Union office in the UK within the next 45 minutes. Shortly after wiring the money it occurred to me to give my friend a call just to make sure he was ok. In doing so I discovered that he had not taken his family to the UK and that he had been victimized by the scammer.
Knowing this information, I reviewed the email address that the scammer was using. For example, say my friend’s name is: “Bill Baldwin” (not his real name). The name “Bill Baldwin” appeared in the return address box at the top of the email, which seemed ok. However, when I clicked on the name to find out the actual email address, I discovered that instead of what should be, say, wibaldwin@gmail.com (again not my friend’s actual email address), the email address used by the scammer was very similar, like, wibaldiwin@gmail.com
By this time over an hour had passed and I feared that the scammer had already picked up the funds. I called Western Union and told them the story and fortunately the funds had not as yet been picked up and I was told that my money would be refunded.
During this ordeal I found out about a number of web sites that would be helpful to know about in such circumstances. Here they are:
- FBI
- National Fraud Center
- National Consumer League
- Western Union – click on “Consumer Protection”
- International – Click on Information Technology Crime
- Federal Trade Commission ID Theft
The moral of the story is to check out the validity of a request for money even it you think it is from someone you know or someone in your own family. Had I bothered to check the return email address when I received the first email from the scammer, I would have known it was a scam.
Best wishes for a Joy Filled New Year.
Peace,
Bob
I was hacked and they changed all loggin n security info what do I do! There contacting people using my name
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