Friend in distress scam

Chris1001

You may all be aware of this scam, but it came as a bit of a shock to me. Opened my emails today to find one from a friend I'd met in the States in the summer. The email said - to summarise - that she'd been mugged in Madrid and that she needed funds urgently. Could I wire funds to her via Western Union.

Initial reaction was 'oh no, how awful', followed by 'umm this sounds a little weird'. The email didn't address me by name, and the story seemed rather strange - she lives in the US. If she'd been coming to Europe she probably would have let me know. Also no mention of husband, family etc. I therefore did a search and found this particular scam is known as Friend in Distress Scam. However, I can see how easy it might be for people to react by helping a friend - so this is a warning to everyone.

Interestingly, the 'reply' email goes to a ymail account - something I have not heard of. Theoretically I would reply giving my telephone number in order to speak directly to 'my friend', but I don't want to be exposed to possible hacking myself. I have emailed my friend on - I don't have a telephone number - asking her to get in touch (just to be sure), although possibly they are intercepting her gmail , in which case I may get a follow up email.

Is this a familiar story?

C

DCFC79

You seem to have researched it so was it a familiar story. Ive heard of similar stories. The first sign its a scam is western union.

heretolearn_2

Yes, we've had these from two of our contacts - the scammers hack an email address and it goes out to everyone on their contact list.

Chris1001

I can't say I was familiar with the story, but when the email arrived it rang warning bells. I think I read something about this in a Sunday paper a few months ago.

I posted this to warn others. It seems to be one notch up from the "enrich yourself for free" scam. This is more on the lines of "surely you're would help your friend" scenario - and I would say more worrying actually as people may be more likely to be drawn in.

fluffnutter

There was an article about this in the Guardian a few weeks ago. One of the journos nearly got scammed in the same way. It's a fairly clever one if done right.

JuicyJesus

It's a very clever one because Western Union is, as per the (good) advice from virtually every scambuster website and financial business there is, something that you should never, ever use for anything other than to get money to people you know who are in a dire emergency. Pretending to be that, and tugging at heartstrings in the process, is quite a brilliant bit of a*seholeism. My hat goes off to whichever waste of life thought it up. Apparently having upended morals doesn't mean you can't be a very clever conniving little pr*ck.

In reality, if you are ever in this situation, the best people to speak to are your bank, as they can try and arrange a way of getting funds (which more likely than not will be Western Union, albeit from a known quantity) and - more importantly - cancel your cards.

*LoopyLaura*

I had one from my friends email & ot was very well written, the only thing that gave it away was the word 'cell' phone.... Oddly enought they signed it from 'X & Y' - X being my friend & Y being his girlfriend of less than a month? Odd.

ViolaLass

If you receive one of these emails and want to contact your friend to let them know/check that they're OK, do not write to their usual email address as it will have been hacked. Call them or contact them by some other way. You also need to warn the friend that their email has been hacked and that if they use the same password for anything else e.g. eBay or online banking, they may have been hacked there too and need to change their passwords asap.

dealer_wins

How can anyone really fall for this. If they were that much of a good friend that they would contact you in an emergency, you would already know they were abroad and where they are staying, you would know their style of writing etc

Chris1001

Unfortunately I think people do fall for this - therefore it's a good idea to spread the word - especially to older users (I'm thinking of my dad and my mother-in-law) who would tend to act first - out of goodness of their hearts - and then think about it later.

In the case I described, I don't have another email address for my friend, or her telephone number. I live in the south of England, she lives in Washington DC. I have emailed her to warn her but haven't had a reply which makes me think that the hacker has taken over her email (is that possible?) I'm sure she would have emailed me back if she'd received my concerned email. Now I don't know how I'm going to contact her.

ViolaLass

Chris1001 wrote: »

(is that possible?)

Not only possible but very likely. Have you checked the email address that the hacker wrote to you with? Is it quite like your friend's email address but one letter out?