Yesterday, my friends and acquaintances received an email from my gmail account. I didn’t sent this email however.  It was one of many variations on the “Nigerian” money transfer scams.  The email was sent from my account, and signed off with my name.  My gmail account was hacked! I don’t know how, and don’t know exactly when. It came at the most inopportune of times.  I’m currently on vacation in the west coast.  Were I not so addicted to the Internet, I might not have found about this until next week.

While I hope and expect that nobody in my address book will fall for this - I have tried to email or contact everyone that I have addresses for to ignore the email - I do think this scam is pretty nefarious.  The story is marginally believable, and relies on potential trust that I have personally built.  The typical scam is from a random individual and is easily dismissed. This scam might actually work as it and builds on the trust that comes from using my name and actual email address.

The body of the email is:

Hello
How are you doing today? Fine I presume. I am writing to inform you about my traveling in Africa, even though it might sound odd to you but it’s for real. My aunt and God mother who live here as a missionary is seriously ill, she is suffering from a critical fibroid and she needs family support around her to keep her going. Am very sorry for not informing you before embarking on my journey, I had no option but to act fast because the news of her illness arrived to as emergency, the doctor said that her condition is deteriorating that she will undergo a hysterectomy operation to keep her alive because her fibroid has gotten worse (70 pounds Large) and has done a lot of damages to her abdominal area.I was wondering if you can lend the sum of $2500, because I want to transfer her back home so that she can have the surgery done at a well equipped hospital, because I am not comfortable with things here am afraid something might go wrong. I am traveling with little cash because I didn’t expect things to be the way it is right now. Please let me know your financial status, if you are able to lend me the money, I have to come up with the money as soon as possible to be able to pay for her freight bill and other medical cost that will be required for the transfer. Get back as soon as you receive my message or call my hotel on +234 17493909

I am almost curious enough to call the phone number.   Though I don’t actually expect to reach someone who will answer to my name.   I imagine the number is just a number of a generic hotel to give credibility to the story.

To say the least, I was very upset when I learned my account had been compromised.  The account has been shutdown by google after I alerted them to the matter.   I would hope they would actually investigate, but given what I know of their actual customer service - that’s probably not in the cards.  I’m generally speaking pretty careful with my account information.   That particular email address wasn’t even one that I use widely.   I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that nothing else has been hacked (I have taken preventative measures).