One scam that keeps mutating and going round is an e-mail seemingly coming from one of your friends which suggests that your friend is in a foreign country, has been robbed and needs money urgently to pay a hotel bill or purchase a flight home. Or some other pressing need for which you will be recompensed on his or her return to the UK.
The e-mail address shown as that of the sender is really that of your friend and is the same as in your address book. Don't be fooled into thinking it really has come from them. If you hit the return button the address shown will be very similar but subtly different to the one you saw before, probably involving a yahoo, ymail, gmail or hotmail domain.
If you do receive such an e-mail DO NOT respond by sending a message after hitting the return button.
Forward the email to your friend using the address in your address book and / or try to phone your friend to see if there really is a problem and to alert him or her that their name is being used in a scam.
If, as it almost certain, their name has been used fraudulently, then they ought to let everyone in their address book know what has happened. They might also wish to alert the police although I imagine they are swamped with similar complaints.
Don Shore
The e-mail address shown as that of the sender is really that of your friend and is the same as in your address book. Don't be fooled into thinking it really has come from them. If you hit the return button the address shown will be very similar but subtly different to the one you saw before, probably involving a yahoo, ymail, gmail or hotmail domain.
If you do receive such an e-mail DO NOT respond by sending a message after hitting the return button.
Forward the email to your friend using the address in your address book and / or try to phone your friend to see if there really is a problem and to alert him or her that their name is being used in a scam.
If, as it almost certain, their name has been used fraudulently, then they ought to let everyone in their address book know what has happened. They might also wish to alert the police although I imagine they are swamped with similar complaints.
Don Shore