Wrexham Trading Standards Warn Of Scam ‘Stranded Abroad’ Emails

Wrexham Trading Standards have received notification that a resident was unable to access their computer on Friday. Having checked with their service provider it was found that their account had been hacked.

The hack meant that all the persons in their address list had been sent an a e-mail to say she was stranded in Limassol and required money transferring.

This is a scam and has been made possible by the persons computer and or email account being hacked and their address book being accessed.

There are many different versions of these scam attempts, and although this is not likely to be geographically targetted to Wrexhamites due to the nature of the internet we thought we would highlight it.

Names and other details differ depending on who’s webmail account the scammers have hijacked, as do the countries where the “friend” is supposedly stranded. The amounts of money requested in the messages may also differ. In spite of such superficial differences, all such messages are versions of the same basic scam. Sadly, some people have become victims of this scam and lost money to these criminals.

As usual be wary of any email that you receive that asks you to send money, even if the message appears to come from a friend. Moreover, users of webmail should make sure that their account details are as secure as possible, and be wary of possible phishing scams designed to steal their webmail account details. Many people may have several webmail accounts, some of which are not often used. Thus it is a good idea to check all webmail accounts regularly to ensure that they have not been compromised and sending out scam email or spam that could appear to be from you!