POSTED ON WEDNESDAY, 18th OCTOBER
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This afternoon, I received an email similar to the following [sic!] —
Subject: Are you online ?
From: "c.barrett54" <c.barrett54@btinternet.com>
Date: 18/10/2023, 14:35.
Hi
I hope you are fine? Can i ask for a quick favour Lottie x
My suspicions were immediately aroused by this innocent-looking email, so I rang the email's apparent writer (who I know, but whose name I've changed here), and was quite unsurprised to learn that she'd hadn't written the mail, but HAD received several messages from local people to say that her computer and/or email account had been hacked. Although well-meaning advice, this is most likely not so, and only served to worry the lady unnecessarily — though she DID need to know of the email, so that she could react to it appropriately. In fact it was not her that was targeted, but those who might unthinkingly reply to this email, whose email addresses might then have been pestered instead. Do NOT reply to such emails — and also avoid the offer to "unsubscribe" from such posts (unless you are CERTAIN that the email is from an organisation known to you), as you will most surely be subscribing to them instead!
I suggested that she should react only by contacting the email service provider concerned (btinternet.com) to have "c.barrett54"s errant email address suspended. Her own (quite valid) email address happens to be with the same provider, but it needn't have been.
You will realise that it is easy to create an email address — in this case just based on some real person's name — and that can by done too by automated so-called 'bots', which could even be programmed to 'know' that Lottie's initial would be "C" (for Charlotte), and not "L". AI (artificial intelligence) can do wonderful things, such as micro-surgery and self-driving cars, but it can be easily misused too to mimic human thinking and expression for devious purposes. However the email is generated, maybe in its thousands, you can be sure that any reply you make will find its way back to a human who wants to make themselves a fast buck or just for plain mischief. Maybe they just have more spare time on their hands than I do — otherwise I could have written this blog sooner!
Fortunately, it can be easy to keep yourself safe. You can read several previous blogs about various scams, all on (or via) this website.
You can also "Sign up to receive a weekly Consumer Champions email alert" from Suffolk Trading Standards each Thursday, if you follow the link at https://www.suffolk.gov.uk/community-and-safety/suffolk-trading-standards/become-a-consumer-champion/. This offers very useful and up-to-date advice.]
Don't have nightmares, do sleep well!
UPDATED ON THURSDAY, 19th OCTOBER
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Subject: EMAIL SCAM
From: Jane Doe <jane.doe@aol.com>
Date: 19/10/2023, 08:29
To: Steve Stocks <webmaster@snapevillage.info>
Good morning Steve,
I received this email (from Lottie) and because I had previous genuine contact (although some time ago) I replied saying I would help if I could. When the second email arrived, I realised something was wrong. It asked me to buy an Amazon gift card to send as a birthday present to a friend who was stricken with cancer and that she (Lottie) would reimburse me when she “got back”. I’ve not replied of course. Do I just delete the three mails? The protection on my iPad is very thorough and I can only think of one other time when I’ve received anything like this. I could kick myself for replying in the first place but, as I say, I had genuinely helped Lottie with something before. Advice please? Jane
I simply responded that Jane should certainly delete all three emails — hopefully they'll get bored and pester somebody else instead — and that she should just be a little more vigilant for suspiciously worded emails over the next few days. Amazon gift cards, like Western Union money transfers, are like cash, so just as untraceable.