Email scam or real?

[wonderwoman]

Hi just wondering if anyone has experienced this or indeed received this email. It's from someone who was the owner of a local nursery in upland road, which went bankrupt in 2008 I believe and our child went there. My email was on their mailing list at one point I guess, but today I received a strange email stating that the person, one of the co-owners was mugged in Spain and had everything taken so she wanted us to send over some money to assist her to return home. I've not responded but wondered if it was really from her or someone who's hacked into her email account? Would be interested to find out if anyone else whose children were there or on their mailing list got this email sent to them?

[joy]

I got this too although my child never went there (we did look around once about 4 years ago). I just assumed it was a scam?

[Betterat50m]

Yes its a scam, a very old one at that. Never ever send money to some one asking for it via email. If you were stuck in a foreign country, the British embassy would pay for your return or contact some one via telephone to help you.

[i*Rate]

wonderwomen,

This sounds just like the scam that happened to some friends of mine last year - them and their friends and contacts on the friend's e-mail list got this panic message "send money, have been robbed!", or something to this effect. Unfortunately for the crooks, one of the addressees was the neighborhood Police officer who rumbled it straight away.

Sadly though, it took a long time to get the matter sorted and it ended up that our friends had to get a new PC costing ?300 - so beware!

All the best.

[Mrs Y]

It is a scam, received one last summer, thought a friend was in trouble aboard and after a few phone calls realise it was most definitely a scam.

[Sue]

This is a very well known scam.

Why would somebody you have had no recent contact with ask you out of the blue to send them money?

[wonderwoman]

At first because of the nature of what happened to the company that owned the nursery we thought it was the owner trying her luck to contact anyone she could to get money but then we started thinking whether she actually knew anything about this at all, either way a scam is a scam I suppose, thanks for our replies

[pommie]

sounds like a scam. why would they ask people to send money over, surely they would contact relatives/friends etc to help them out

[prickle]

The exact thing happened to us. We got an email from a work colleague who asked for help in exactly the same way. Turned out that someone had hijacked his gmail account. He was completely locked out and had to ditch it. Beware!

[Fuschia]

Someone has hacked an address book

[DulwichFox]

prickle Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The exact thing happened to us. We got an email

> from a work colleague who asked for help in

> exactly the same way. Turned out that someone had

> hijacked his gmail account. He was completely

> locked out and had to ditch it. Beware!

I believe gmail is no encrypted bu default.

Any email can be compromised when you are using a Wi-Fi connection in a cafe / bar.

Equipment can be obtained which can monitor other Users and Hi-Jack their email account.

When this happens the user will not be able to log out of their account and the hacker will have

total control of the hi-jacked account.

Fox.

[wonderwoman]

Just a thought sorry if this is silly question but is it likely to be my email or her email account, not received any more such emails but quite often get silly stuff like inviting me to participate in business venture in Venezuela or similar, which goes into junk folder which I just ignore.

[Happy Cyclist]

It'll be there email that's been hacked. Guardian piece about this scam:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oct/07/email-fraud-wrecking-charity?INTCMP=SRCH

[DulwichFox]

wonderwoman Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Just a thought sorry if this is silly question but

> is it likely to be my email or her email account,

> not received any more such emails but quite often

> get silly stuff like inviting me to participate in

> business venture in Venezuela or similar, which

> goes into junk folder which I just ignore.

Do not think email has been hacked.

Just an email that would of been sent out to 100's of people hoping someone will respond.

Like Pizza leaflets through your door.

Usually when you get hacked all the people in your address book will get a mail that appears to come from you.

or you get email that appears to come from you.

Check the senders mail address and add it to your 'Blocked Senders List'.

Fox.