An old internet scam has hit my family--beware this scam!

I hadn't heard of this one. My family would laugh their a** off. They know I haven't got the money to even take a vacation much less go abroad.

Thanks for that. How awful for them. I have to say that there's no way that my family would contact me for money. They know just how well off I am in that department. They might e mail offering some though. Like that nice Nigerian man who wants to push $10,000,000 through my account. Perhaps he's a cousin. I must ask him!

Nothing surprises me, it just keeps getting better and better. I am glad that you did not fall for it. Thanks for the heads up.

yes i wish everyone on the internet was this careful and perhaps they'd stop even wasting their time. i've known about this since '95 when my employer, an elderly man, had been checking his email and it said to call western union right away as his caregiver (me, it mentioned my name) was stuck out of town and needed money. luckily they didnt realise his daughter was there (must have been someone knew i was on vacation) and she called me right away. he didnt know how to transfer money online anyway i told her i dont know what they were talking about. she figured it was a scam then and told her dad never to even try it without asking about that person first. he was so upset thinking something had happened to me, i had to talk to him on the phone. poor old guy. he had become like a kid.

Hi, Dragon! I realize there are so many scams out there, but I never heard of this one. Thank you for posting it here because sometimes who knows when in time of emergency and urgency and wanting to help out, we might fall into this scam. So, it's better to take an extra pre-caution by spreading this type of crimes. Glad to know that you could verify that it was a fraud. Thanks again! Have a nice weekend!

I have the same story but its from an officemate email add... Like your sister and mother, i asked some questions and the hacker was not able to answer them all coz I don't usually send my officemate a message regarding our office to her personal email add... The same reason why the hacker doesn't know anything about our work... And even if the hacker answered my questions successfully, I stil cannot send him any money coz I don't have money And my officemate knows that too... So it is very suspecious and definitely UNBELIEVABLE!!!! why me???

I hate crooks who steal from people. Here in my country, the scam is the same. They would call and tell whoever answers that their relative has been in an accident and needs money for the hospital. They would even ask to bring everything of value. I am not sure if anyone has fallen victim to this kind of scam, but my mother has been a victim of a robbery where a pregnant lady and her "husband" asked for directions. They practically kidnapped my mom, got her in a vehicle and drove her somewhere and asked her to withdraw money though ATM. Then they took her jewelry. Thankfully, they did not hurt her but it has been a very traumatic incident for my mother.

Thank you for the heads up. But I'm one who ask when where and how...Plus if you can't call me on my phone and think that I'm going to communicate with you through emails that person is just as crazy as hell(LOL) But anyway its also good to have your IM with a different or backup password because I to had my email addy tampered with and the person send emails to almost everyone in my address book(spamming thenm) but I was able to go to my profile and keep my orinigal email addy and change my sign in name and password and put a secruity link on it.

Nothing surprises me but wouldn't they think that most people wouldn't have the money to travel abroad. Or do they just think people go out on a whim to such a far place w/o mentioning it to anyone? Probably mentioned London because that's the country they'd want you to send the money too. I'm glad you and your family were wise enough to know that it was bogus.

i received some scam email myself many times. like 3 times a week. but what i do this morning as i got bored deleting them, i replied to one scam email. and answered that i don't need . better donate the money to other people cause i don't want to be rich. cause the email is asking me to help her to get her money from one bank. i believe she was asking some money for me to do that. so no way, i will send. i am playing with her or him, just trying to make it appear i believe the email or i think they may get that i am just trying to play with their game.

As easy as that is to believe that's why i try not to access information except from my phone and my home computer. It's hard to understand but where people get in trouble is when they use public computers. There are emails saying you won the lottery as well, when your email was submitted to some site and it's usually a site you've never heard of. Also, there are certain sites like Fed Ex who has had frauded emails going around telling people to go pick up something and there was never nothing to pick up atleast that was sent from them anyways. i called Fed ex when i got one of them and they had me send it to them so they could track down where it came from. I hope you don't have to go through that again. good luck.

Hello dragon54u this is checkmail and thanks for sharing in your scam experience with us, this type of scam seems to be an new one.Yeah earlier also am rec various emails from various dubiest authorities to collect mine big money from their banks.But its really an query to ask ourself, would anybody lend you such an amount.Even there have been many scams exposed by some inexperienced net user who falled for such scams.Well nice knowing that you too survived the scam, hope you could get an required firewall for your personal info security.Me too am trying mine best type of security to avoid such misleaks, and virus pro.Wish you luck, fight scam.Happy Mylotting.

Hi Dragon, That is also happening here in our country. since majority of the couple here work and only person left at home are the children and our caregivers. they are innovative enough to get all the information about you and your family and make use of it to collect money. Creating a scene that the one of the kids is in the hospital and needs money, that she was requested by the landlady to pick up money to pay a loan or get her jewelries as she will be attending a gathering--all lies and scam. Even in text -SMS scams very rampant here too. if you are not smart and quick you will be in trouble!

I once recieved and email too but,this time there person told me that,if fact it was a she and I believe its was a he who was pretending to be a she. This is what there person told me that she is the child of and exminister who is Congo,and that due to the war he father was kill and she succeded to run to Senegal and she is in a refuge camp. She also said that she is writting from a pastors house and that there are not allowed to us computer and cell phone The end was that she has millions of dollars in a bank that i should my contact and the will process all the information and send my the money but i knew it was a scam so i did not send any imformation Beware of Scamms

I've gotten similar emails from people I barely know. Fortunately, I could tell right away because well, the writing style didn't sound the same at all. Plus, i barely knew the person in real life, so they wouldn't email me for help.

Dragon I am so glad that your Sister rang you I was not aware that this scam is still going on. I am really surprised as this one has been going for a while now, so why is no one catching on to them The other that was also from London was one that they where in a Hotel and had been robbed of their money, that they needed a certain amount (which went into thousands of pounds) to pay their Bill and get their back to their own Country I just do not get how these People are doing this and getting away with it

some people now adays would steal from anyone makes me sick thank god your mom seen though the scam sad thing is somepeople wont see though the scam till its to late

hi dragon54u A year ago my friend Nelda got an email from a relative saying the relative and her husband were In London and had been robbed, please send money, it looked authentic but she being really smart called her neice long distance to Wisconsin and her neice and her niece's hubby were safe at home, had never been in London and wondered why someone was using her email account then they discovered that she had a trojan horse in her computer that was sending out emails like that all over the US. so they had quite a time getting the virus out of their computer as the virus overode her McAfee virus protection completely. you would think the idiots would at least change where their people were robbed at.Seems they had been sending numerous emails out of the niece's email account to people all over and saying that relatives were stranded in London and had to have money at once. People get wise after awhile and learn they have been scammed and have a virus in their computer sending out all that garbage. somehow these people should be stopped. ugh.

Wow, I can't believe that people spend time out of their every day lifes scamming people and then on top of that steal peoples email addresses for their own personal use. I think the best way to avoid something such as that is to never give anyone your password that you do not know or trust. But thank you for informing me of such scam. I hope that there are more people that do not fall for such scams as these.

If they are that desperate for money then chances are they can't afford to e-mail you anyway. Lucky for you that was caught. I used to get random spam asking for my banking information and what not. I simply twitched and hit delete as quickly as I could. After all people claim scams like this aren't "common", but you know what.... they are.