Beware The Scamming Emailer

[fruittbatt]

Just wanted to alert people in Chiang Mai that this evening I received a bogus request from the email address of a friend here. The gist of this email was that the friend is stranded in Greece after losing his wallet and needs money to pay hotel bills and also to pay for a fare back to Thailand. The emailer was asking for 1000 GBP or any contribution.

I was somewhat suspicious because I had seen the friend in question in Nimmanheimin Road on Saturday. I also thought it highly unlikely this person would be going to Greece or that he would send an email asking for money.

A phone call confirmed that the friend is still in Chiang Mai and had never emailed me. Apparently he used a public computer a couple of days ago and must have forgotten to sign out.

I am sure that most people would be suspicious of any request for money, but just wanted to alert you all to the scam in case there is anyone out there whose compassion might overrule their scepticism.

[earlofwindermere]

I received the same email just after Christmas...from the owner of a popular restaurant in town?

[fruittbatt]

I received the same email just after Christmas...from the owner of a popular restaurant in town?

No, not this one. One thing that made me suspicious immediately was that the writer started with the American greeting "How are you doing?", yet the friend in question is English and would not use that expression.

[chiangmaibruce]

most scam emails having been doing the rounds for a long time, some for years - with minimal changes in wording.

therefore you can cut and paste a sentence from them and/or the title into google or yahoo (add the words hoax+email) ... and read the whole history of that scam (if it is a scam). this includes "virus warning", "missing child", "bad luck if you break the chain" etc etc etc. They are all there

Anyone reading this ... please engage your brain into gear before passing these things on to everyone in your mailing list ... otherwise the next generation will be still reading the same time-wasting garbage & generating email hit-lists for the next generation of spammers

[fruittbatt]

most scam emails having been doing the rounds for a long time, some for years - with minimal changes in wording.

therefore you can cut and paste a sentence from them and/or the title into google or yahoo (add the words hoax+email) ... and read the whole history of that scam (if it is a scam). this includes "virus warning", "missing child", "bad luck if you break the chain" etc etc etc. They are all there

Anyone reading this ... please engage your brain into gear before passing these things on to everyone in your mailing list ... otherwise the next generation will be still reading the same time-wasting garbage & generating email hit-lists for the next generation of spammers

Interesting, Bruce. I just Googled "Hoax email stranded lost wallet" and sure enough almost the identical wording came up on a blog in which the writer was explaining how some scammer had impersonated a surfer called Ace Cool in order to obtain money transfers.

Glad I used this forum rather than my email contact list to alert people.

[Nignoy]

We had a differentvery elaborate variation of an old scam tried on us, last week, we have our house for sale on the internet,many foreign investors are investing in our area, we got a letter from a busness woman in neuchatel in switzerland who said she had purchased properties here and was interested in ours, we checked with a local estate who is acting for her, everything to seemed to be on the up and up, she sent us her flight schedule and arrival times in Brisbane, then we recieved an email supposedly arrested in j/burg airport in SA, as verification they sent copies of her swiss passport and driving licence, in the 3rd or4 th email they then asked for us to pay a 5000dollar fine for her to have her released, by this time it was starting to get a bit suspicious,pay dollars not rand , scary thing is we checked with neuchatel police, her home address was genuine and her family said she was overseas purchasing investment properties, we were informed last friday her Briefcase was stolen in geneva and she was travelling in the usa on her new documents, it just seems such a lot of effort has been put into this old scam, mrs nignoy was really pissed off lol already had new house and new Benz picked out!!