[Anonymous]

[Tete_de_cuvee]

Elderly friends of non-corporate business travellers are particularly vulnerable to this scam.

Two months prior to this article I was one of many who received an e-mail from a friend (whose e-m account had been hacked) pleading for financial help as he had been robbed abroad, stranded with no funds. I was sceptical as he was well travelled and was confident of his ability to get his UK bank to wire emergency funds to him.
However, some less savvy friends were taken in with £800 being sent and lost.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/16/email-hacker-identity-rowenna-davis

[MartynSinclair]

Some months ago, I got a similar email from a friend along similar lines.

Unfortuantely there is always that 1% or less chance that he could be introuble and I simply repsonded by asking him a question about me that only he would know.

If he had resepnded positiviely, I would probably looked into further, but on the basis that there was no response, I just deleted.

Whilst I take many precautions, as we all do, I do use an external IT consultant who is far more qualified than me to ensure my computer remains safe.

[LuganoPirate]

I too received an email about six months ago from a friend of mine who was travelling to Singapore. Same thing, in trouble, phone stolen with money and cc etc. Only email address he could remember was mine and he urgently needed €1,000

They obviously picked this info from his hacked email account.

Only thing they did not pick up was he had hurt his foot that day, so cancelled his trip last moment. He was actually sitting next to me, enjoying a cigar, some cheese and an excellent port!

We both reported this to the police but till now have heard nothing further.

[BeckyBoop]

If you use HOtmail it has a thing that lets you report hacked accounts for friends and spam xx

[stevescoots]

I play them and the 419’rs along if i am bored

[skywards]

Thanks for that info…i have many friends who travel and work aboard….but i think i could tell by the way its wrote that it’s none of my real close friends…if it did happen to me i would rattle off some email questions to him/her…that only me and the real him/her would know before doing anything else.

[NTarrant]

I too recently received an email from a friend who apparently had been mugged in Spain. Give away was that the couple in question don’t now travel abroad due to illness. What was also interesting and another give away was the tone and words used in the email to discribe the alleged event. Terminology which they would not use.

[Author]

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