Family history scam

[Kit 52]

Hi all,
I recently received an e mail, supposedly from a "cousin", claiming to be in dire need.
He said that whilst visiting London, he had been mugged and ALL his valuables were taken,
ie. passport, cash and credit cards. In short, he wanted money ! I KNEW it was a scam,
but it still shook me up. The author of this e mail must have got the "cousin's name" and my
e mail address from a message board. I want you all to be aware of this despicable scam,
and do what I did. Ignore it !

Cath    aka  Kit 52

[aghadowey]

It's nothing to do with family history- this scam seems to be going the rounds again and there've been several posts here about it in the last week or so.

[Kit 52]

I take issue with the reply to my previous post. If it's nothing to do with family history.........
then how did they come by their information ? The name they used actually is a cousin of
mine who lives in Australia.
There is NO need for such a rude reply either ! We don't all check your site every day. I wasn't
aware of the other posts. I apologize for being such a pest. I just wanted to warn others, I shall
not bother in future.

Cath

[aghadowey]

I've merged your reply with the thread you've already started this morning. I was not being rude and merely pointed out that there have been other posts about this recently (it is an old scam that seems to surface every now and then) but sorry you seem to have been annoyed with my reply.

Added- here are links to some of the other threads-
www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,459021.0.html
www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,458783.0.html

[Brant81uk]

Just read this post and in defence of aghadowey how was that reply being rude??? Simply stating that this scam has been done before? And how I read 'It has nothing to do with Family History' I think aghadowey was trying to say that the person doing the scam has no intention of using the information gathered for History purposes.

You have been on rootschat long enough to realise the vasy majority of members are not here to cause offence but to help and I think your comment to  aghadowey was far more rude then the reply he/she gave you.

[carol8353]

This scam and many like it have been around for a while.

If you are at all concerned you can always check out how valid they are on http://www.snopes.com/


Carol

[Maggie.]

Or here:-

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/stranded-scam.shtml

It would appear that it's the webmail of your 'cousin' that has been compromised and he/she needs to change the password and log-in details of the account.

Maggie

[coombs]

Also in defence of aghadowey her/his post was not being rude at all in the slightest Cath. A fact was just being stated. I have been on rootschat since 2004 and have never known any people to be rude on here.