Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Fake request for financial assistance

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Fake request for financial assistance

During the past month, I received this type of e-mail from two people that I knew. I suspect that they are fraud. Be careful. I hope that the Police will carry out a sting operation and catch the culprit. It is easy for the police to do it, if they are willing to take the trouble.

Hello,

How are you doing? I hope this email reaches you on time, i had a trip to the United Kingdom, but unfortunately for me i got mugged at the park of the hotel,all my cash, credit card and cell-phone were taken away from me. I don't even have a phone where i can be reached right now because of my hotel bill.

Presently my things are been held down by the hotel management due to my inability to pay the hotel bills which i currently owe, they even had to restrict my access to the hotel facilitates until outstanding bills are cleared and i don't have a dime on me again,i had to walk down to the city library in order to send you this email.

I need you to kindly assist me with about $2,780:08 USD so that i can settle the hotel bills and make arrangement to return back home, please let me know how much you can assist me with soonest.

7 comments:

Soojenn said...: This type of scam has been around since quite a while.. since you know the two people who supposedly have sent this, you could verify with them eventually to determine if this is a fraud.

The scammers have also been able to use the victims email to do this.

Expecting the Police to do anything about this is perhaps expecting too much of the SPF. They are now known to help citizens, and are there more to protect the incumbent? picking on the opposition, using ambigious laws, subject to interpretations..

I have know of people who make innumerous police reports on harrassment, vandalism, personation and have yet received any help from our "heros" the SPF, claiming to have no powers to arrest the culprit.; May 04, 2010 1:31 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Hi soojenn
Let us continue to be positive. If the police takes the trouble, they can quite easily gather evidence against the cheats.

It is easy for the "sting" to reply to the email and catch the culprit red handed. For example, the money has to be transferred and has to be collected by the perpetuator.

I called the first person, and confirmed that it was a fake and fraud. His email was hacked.; May 04, 2010 1:37 PM
Soojenn said...: KL I applaud you for being still so positive about our "heros".

Like you say .."..if the police takes the trouble.." This is a big "IF". I really have doubts that they would do anything on this, unless perhaps it is highlighted or instructed by old man or one or the million dollar ministers?

"... gather evidence against the cheats.." I have no doubt on their ability to do this... they have already shown to be able to retrieve all sorts of information against the opposition, people who are anti-PAP. The big question is , "IF" they are willing to do this.; May 04, 2010 2:12 PM
Anonymous said...: It will be close to impossible to catch the culprits.

Very often, the money will need to be Western Unioned overseas, perhaps to a african country.

So there is no way to catch the culprits.; May 04, 2010 3:27 PM
A Singaporean said...: It is very easy to send out emails in the name of another person, because the SMTP email protocol provides no mechanism to prevent impersonation. No hacking of email accounts is needed.

One way to verify the authenticity of emails is to check the email headers to see where the email is sent from. This sounds somewhat technical, but almost all email clients provide this option. While the email headers can be faked as well, it is somewhat harder than faking the From field.; May 05, 2010 1:34 AM
Anonymous said...: Such practices are very common. It's whether our police want to work with Interpol or other countries police or not. To our police, better do not get involved, too much work involved. So why bother if no prominent people are been involved in the scam. That's our law.; May 05, 2010 5:25 AM
hang lian said...: Sometimes googling phrases in the email helps, some websites list such emails as a hoax, as they are mostly created with a similar template, if you are lucky, you will find a 80-90% similar email on such websites.

Take this email for example, try googling "Presently my things are been held down by the hotel management" and see what you get.

This applies to emails from friends, or forwarded emails asking for help, eg. the little girl with cancer, the boy who was paralysed in an accident, etc.; May 05, 2010 8:34 AM