Detected a scam email from an email supposedly from a person known to you?
I went along engaging in an email conversation with a scammer. This just happened yesterday. It went like this:
But first: note these
- I am hiding contact info to protect the name/email of the person that the scammer pretended to be.
- I know the person that the scammer pretended to be, the person is my neighbor
Scammer email:
"Hi Do you mind if I ask for a favor? Thanks, XXXX."
My response:
"How can I help?"
Scammer email:
"I am sorry to bother you with this mail, I need to get Apple gift card for my Niece, it's her birthday but I can't do this now because I'm currently traveling and I tried purchasing it online but unfortunately, I have no luck with that. Can you get it from any store around you? I'll pay back as soon as I am back. Kindly let me know if you can handle this."
My response:
"Sure thing, give me some specifics!"
Scammer email:
"I am glad you could help. The total amount needed is $1000, $500 denomination ($500*2) cards. You can get it from any store around you like the Walgreen, CVS, Koger or any other grocery store and I need you to open the envelope of the card to see the inner card then take a picture of the card back showing the Pin numbers then have the cards sent to me via email attachment so I would forward it to her.
I owe you, "
I stopped the conversation. Then texted my neighbor about what had just happened. They confirmed their account was hacked sometime back, and they were aware of the email scam.
The RED flag, whenever you see this type of thing "take a picture of the card showing the Pin numbers then have the cards sent to me via email". Just walk away.
During the email exchange, I noticed that the initial email was sent from XXXX@comcast.com, while subsequent emails from the scammer came from XXXXy@hotmail.com. I checked the XXXXy@hotmail.com against a known email account of my neighbor (against our neighborhood directory) and noticed the scammer added a new character (notice the y in the email). This tells me that the scammer was able to hack the Comcast account but was not able to access the Hotmail account.
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