Stranded in Italy Scam

Stranded in Italy Scam

This is a clear scam that I received by Email (from a Yahoo account) purporting to come from someone I know.

I texted the person concerned and discovered that they were not stranded in Italy.

I checked the header of the message which gave a Nigerian server address from which the message originated.

Somehow dispite the fact that the account owner changed their password several times the scammers have been into the account again and again and have even deleted most of the contact list.

I answered the message as though I believed it was genuine and they asked for 950 Euros which is more than a thousand Dolllars.

Here it is.

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I know this may sound odd but it all happened very fast. I made a trip to Italy and I misplaced my luggage containing my passport and credit cards. I've contacted my bank and the embassy, the embassy is willing to assist me but my funds are depleted to pay for a new passport fees and other miscellaneous expenses.

I don't have access to my account over and My bank said it would take 5 working days to access funds from my account. Please can you lend me some funds? I'll pay back, as soon as I return home.

I await your response,

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Hello PsyBorg,

Have your friend run a couple different Anti virus software in his computer. Just de-activate one as they runs the other.

Next have your friend change his recovery address and test questions. Then he/she want to change his passwords on everything. I mean everything. Also change the password on the recovery address and test questions. Add a phone number to the address. Make the new password something not related to them in live. Random letters mixed with numbers. Do not save that information on the computer.

Look his/her account over good to make sure mail is not forwarded. Also how the reply setting are set.

Have him/her contact his/her bank and notify them also. Putting a fraud alert on his/her accounts and all three Credit Reporting Agencies. The reason I say to notify the bank and changing all password (Banking Accts., Credit Cards, Ebay and Paypal) is sometimes people will use the same PW and mail still in the account could help the scammer further his fraud.

Dotti posted this to help another victim awhile back.

Dotti Wrote:
If she follows the process properly, she can notify one of the major agencies, and they will be required to notify the other 2 agencies.

The FTC has provided information on the fraud alert process here:
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/02 ... -alert#Why

Better yet: do not use Yahoo ever again (all the stories of forged messages claiming that someone was stranded that I remember came from Yahoo addresses), and do not use Windows for web browsing or connect a Windows box directly to the Internet. Back up all data and install Linux or BSD (I recommend Ubuntu for newbies).

I once got an email purporting to be from someone I know saying that he was stranded in England. As he is from England, this was believable, but I called and found out that he was in America. He dropped the Yahoo address and switched to Gmail.