talkmagic.co.uk

Some of you may have had the same email I just received, supposedly from Arthur Casson which reads:

From: Arthur Casson (arthurcasson@****.***) Microsoft SmartScreen classified this message as junk.
Sent: 28 January 2014 18:45:23
To: mandrake1931@*********.****



My family and I are currently in (Kharkiv,Ukraine) on vacation, but unfortunately we were pick pocketed at the Airport we lost most of our luggages, we are currently cashless and without our phones but luckily we still have our passports with us.

We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all the bad news is but we're having problems settling the hotel bills as we are cash strapped. We had to use some of valuables as collateral. we are freaked out at the moment! we need your help, we need you to loan us some money to get things in order till we can contact our Families via E-mail to see if they can also help. right now we need 2,000 GBP or anything you can afford, I promise to refund you in full as soon as I return hopefully tomorrow or next. write back now to let me know what you can do.keep checking your email because it's the only way i can get intouch with you.

Thanks

Arthur Casson

No doubt this is fake but I'm sending details to Arthur to be on the safe side - obviously I don't have to advise that nobody sends any money?

Yeah, this is a fairly well-established con.

Do people actually go along with these?

You'd think by now that most people would be well aware of such approaches but, sadly, people still get caught. Rellies of ours in New Zealand are in regular contact via Skype but suddenly the calls ceased and we had a phone call instead. Apparently someone had phoned them saying their computer was full of viruses which were being spread about and if they just logged in to.... you know the form! The result was a hasty trip down to the local computer specialist to remove all the crud and malware which had been loaded, several days of frantic emails and phone calls apologising for the flood of spam from their computer - all of which cost a significant sum. The spammers were doubly cheeky and phoned again two days later to check that everything was working fine now but said there were one or two other matters which they needed to fix!

The email address used is the correct one for Arthur which is why I deleted part of it so his computer has been well and truly hacked - not nice so close to the busiest event of the year!

Mandrake wrote:You'd think by now that most people would be well aware of such approaches but, sadly, people still get caught. Rellies of ours in New Zealand are in regular contact via Skype but suddenly the calls ceased and we had a phone call instead. Apparently someone had phoned them saying their computer was full of viruses which were being spread about and if they just logged in to.... you know the form! The result was a hasty trip down to the local computer specialist to remove all the crud and malware which had been loaded, several days of frantic emails and phone calls apologising for the flood of spam from their computer - all of which cost a significant sum. The spammers were doubly cheeky and phoned again two days later to check that everything was working fine now but said there were one or two other matters which they needed to fix!

The email address used is the correct one for Arthur which is why I deleted part of it so his computer has been well and truly hacked - not nice so close to the busiest event of the year!

Well put, Some people need to get a life.