You get an email from one of your close friends. The FROM address looks correct and the appeal is desperate. Your friend, who travels often, is stranded and hungry. She needs to get $2500 urgently. Would you help?
On Monday afternoon, Linda Wilkinson's friends received such an email. Linda, spends much of the year in Zambia helping people in an AIDS-ravaged village and sends frequent emails to her friends back home about her work. So, an email from Africa is not a surprise.
Two of her friends thought she was in real trouble. Janis Ingham and Jeanne Steinnagel, both teachers at Pawcatuck Middle School in Stonington, CT, were prepared to rally their friends to help. But, neither one remembered Wilkinson saying that she planned to go to Nigeria. So, they wrote back, saying they wanted to know if she was alone and where to send money. The instructions were to send it to Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria and to keep the transaction confidential.
The two teachers then responded saying they were they were concerned someone was using her email address and they were withholding any commitment of money until they heard from her directly, reported TheDay.
The response was clever. It said that she was on a special trip to fight AIDS, poverty, racism and lack of education, all issues she is involved with in Africa. Ingham said the emailer apologized for not telling anyone about the special three-nation trip she was on, something she said Wilkinson would have done.
So, what tipped them off?
"In the email, words are not capitalized, there are grammatical mistakes and stilted language, all in contrast to Wilkinson's typical e-mails. It is something Steinnagel said she immediately noticed. She said if Wilkinson was in trouble and had access to email or a telephone, she would contact her husband, who is also in Zambia working for two agencies trying to stem the spread of AIDS," reported the Day.
"Ingham said that when the emails arrived here, it was midnight in Zambia. She said that maybe someone where Wilkinson is living had gained access to her computer while she was sleeping, or perhaps someone stole it."
The two did not send any money. But, this could be a cautionary tale of a new phase of scams. It would seem that Nigeria and the language used were tip offs. It is important to pay close attention.
Subscribe by Email
