We are familiar with internet scams which clog our email box daily. Typically it involves an email from a remote African country from an unknown well-wisher. He will claim that his uncle has left $20 million in the bank account, but to get money, he needs $20,000 urgently from us, and then he will split his uncle’s fortune with us. The logic of such sending such emails is simple: by sending out thousands of emails daily, at least few gullible people will respond.
The same thing was experienced recently by few of our alumni. They received a real-looking email, supposed to be from a faculty member (name withheld) who was ‘stranded’ in Malaysia, and was badly in need of some money to get out of the situation. Many believed the e-mail as it was the first time they were requested for help by a ‘faculty’ and felt it was their duty to bail him out. Luckily, one of the alumni contacted the professor, on whose name the email was written. The professor was shocked to hear this, and everyone was relieved to know that it was just a internet scam, operating from other country.
We alert everyone who receives such fraud emails in future, to first contact the concerned person (on whose behalf the email is written) and verify the fact. Below please find the cleverly drafted email received by several of our alumni.
Hello,
How are you doing today? I am sorry I didn't inform you about my traveling to Malaysia for a program called "Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education. The program is taking place in three major countries in Asia, which are Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. It has been a very sad and bad moment for me; the present condition that I found myself is very hard for me to explain.
I am really stranded in Malaysia because I forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because I have no money on me. I now owe a hotel bill of $1,400 and they wanted me to pay the bill soon or else they will have to seize my bag and hand me over to the Hotel Management. I need this help from you urgently to help me back home, I need you to help me with the hotel bill and I will also need $1,800 to feed and help myself back home. So please can you help me with a sum of $3,200 to sort out my problems here? I need this help so much and on time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here, I don't even have money to feed myself for a day which means i had been starving, so please understand how urgent I need your help.
I am sending you this e-mail from the city Library, I will appreciate what so ever you can afford to send me for now and I promise to pay back your money as soon as I return home. So please let me know on time so that I can forward to you the details of one of the hotel manager you need to transfer the money to me through Money Gram or Western Union.
Hope to hear from you soon. The embassy here have already promised to give me a covering traveling papers that I will need to have my way back home, all I need right now is the money to settle up the bills and leave.
Thanks and get back to me soon.
Regards,
Prof.xxxx
Department of xxxxxx Engineering
Institute of Technology
Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221 005, INDIA