Hi Dear
How you doing? I know this mail may come to you as a suprise but i really need your assistance here.Am not around right now .Traveled our of USA on a business trip.All was going well untill Yesterday.I got robbed and my phone and vailables were stolen. Am in a deep mess here.There hotel am lodged in now for two days and am owing ,Thank God i left my passport in the hotel.or it would have been gone too.I DONT HAVE ANY MONEY.to pay for my flight back to the USA. And am owing the hotel $800, If not for a kind chinese man staying in the room next mine.Who allowed me use his laptop to send this mail.I know i should not be tellliing you this but i dont want my Kids to panic and cause a situation out of this whole mess.I NEED YOU TO HELP OUT.Once i get back i will pay you back with interest.I NEED $2000 to pay for my flight back and settle the hotel bill here.
PLS do act fast so i can be with my family soon.heres the payment details
Name.Your Gather Contact
locations.Nigeria
amount $2000
use western union to send the money i hear it is reliable here.send a text message to the hotel number here with the payment info when you have done this,here the number +2347055256519
thanks and Gods speed
--
Your friend at Gather
Website
Website
----------
I deleted the name of the Gather friend and any identifying information. I did contact my Gather friend via Gather mail, stating that I had received this but that I KNEW it was a Nigerian scam and NOT her.
I also reported it to my outside email SCAM/Fraud Division and will contact Gmail, as well. This did not come to me in my Gmail, but in another outside email that I do have.
I doubt Gmail releases any information, but perhaps the Nigerian scam folks received this Gather friend's name via one of the websites that this person uses. I did ask her about that in my Gather mail to her.
I did also warn MaryAnne that this is happening.
I would as a piece of advice to all of you to thoroughly check the privacy policies of all websites and social networking sites you use.
Facebook, for example, has just agreed to be MUCH more careful with its third-party apps, because when a person uses them, ALL of their profile is SUBJECT TO BE LOOKED at by third parties. The Canadian Government did an investigation of Facebook's apps, and made recommendations to FB, which FB has stated they will implement over the next 12 months.
I never use the FB apps and delete or ignore ALL SUCH REQUESTS. Privacy is one reason. My time is another.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 109
I never believe anything and I usually delete it before I have read too much.
They are on Craigslist a LOT...
.I report every single one of them..
. When I post on Craigslist and I get a SCAM....
I had one where someone in "london" wanted to buy the house. I have it posted on zillow.com and it came thru there.
I sort of played along, but gave very little info, eventually he started insisting that he'd send a cashiers check....
new scam to me, the real estate angle.
I use FB but I have the same kind of semi-private account there I have here, I NEVER use my full name in a public website.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977692585
"Beware the Miracle Friend from Cote d'Ivoire"
P.S. I tried embedding the link, but it didn't work.
Kathryn,
I'm a bit confused (well, more than usual!). Did this message come to your friend and did it actually mention Gather in the message, header, greeting, etc?
In other words, did this scammer know your friend was a Gather member, and appeared to obtain her email address from Gather in some way?
No, the scammer ONLY knew this person's Gmail email address....Probably from Facebook, or perhaps from one of the websites listed in her email (which I deleted but stated Website)....
Oh...ok. Thanks for the clarification. Gather did accidentally release member email addresses at one point in the past, and I thought perhaps this was the result of another breach.
speaking of Swine Flu, I read in the current Newsweek, that even though India and China only contributed a small percentage of the world's greenhouse gases, because of climate changes in those two countries and because of the poverty, China and India will receive a disproportionate amount of disease, despair and death from heated climate resulting from greenhouse emissions....
I have decided to take out a pool membership this winter. Was not going to for the summer, but I will take out one at the high school pool. I used to swim every day, but the adult swim in the high school pool is 8 p.m. or so, due to tight scheduling with all the team practices...and now I no longer have kids at home to put to bed....
But I just delete any request for money from anyone.
It is a sad state of affairs, but they keep doing it because there are still people who bleieve that everything they get in the email is true.
I you really need to part with your money, send it to me. I am sure I can find a good use for it.
Bah, humbug!
I took these mails to be a stupid joke and deleted them immediately. Now, I think I should have given it publicity to forwarn others that there is some kind of racket going on, using Gather's e-mail services.
i get a lot of marriage props from gals...they don't even bother to read profiles.
i report them all to gather as spam. a few every week.....
But her identity was stolen, since they used the same Gmail address she uses......
But her identity was stolen, since they used the same Gmail address she uses......
I know times are rough, but who has $2000.00 just laying around, not being used to for something???? Does anyone every really fall for those?
A limited few of my Gather friends have my private email address. They have occasionally sent joint emails to my own & other's private email addresses.
This exposes my private email address to others who I may not desire to have it. I don't think that this is a proper thing to do, but once it is done, I have no control over it.
Please tell me that you have a valid reason to trust the people you exposed your e-mail address to and that they shared theirs. Because I have extended that trust to a few also and I had only one uncomfortable issue--fortunately I have gmail and when you block someone they are really blocked as if they never existed. I really like that.{^0^}
Two remedies, delete or report, never answer.
Was the info about your Gather friend (name, email) info that could be found on this site. Or was it the person's actual name and actual outside email?
I am just wondering if they were able to hack into Gather or into your friend's email.
Scary!
Probably Facebook or another website, FB has had to agree to changes from the Canadian Government regarding its apps - you know Birthday, Flowers, ALL those things - anytime you open one, you agree to let the third party see your profile and your email address. AND FB has NO control over what the third party does - they might sell to ANYBODY including the Nigerian scam folks!!
it was from so and so at gmail dot com,
but I deleted her name...
her gmail account was hacked..
my posting was a bit confusing....,.
I get a lot of stuff because of my ebay, PayPal, etc. I forward every one to the spoof centers. If everyone would do that instead of just deleting maybe we could accomplish something. I know it is a pain to forward, but I keep an optomistic hope that someday it will stop!
Most recent breach was through ebay - someone relisted one of my items! ebay contacted me that they had caught it and had already dealt with said person. I couldn't figure how listing one of my items would benefit someone else - apparently if someone happens to click on that item they are then asked to send a money order instead of PayPal. Seems like a lot of work for my .99 cent item, but if they do this numerous times???
We had to cancel the card...
and there are people who do fall for this......
Thanks for the info. New to me.
don't use FB apps.
Yet another scam on all us 'rich' American's LOL.
Be careful out there!