Canadian E-Mail Fraud Tries to Extract Money

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center (CAFC) are cautioning netizens that an "emergency scam" is victimizing more-and-more people by means of compromised e-mail accounts. Police stated that scammers are sending e-mails to the addresses in the contact list of compromised accounts to hunt for possible victims.

In the e-mails, the scammers, pretending to be one of the family member or a family member's friend, state that they immediately need money because some urgent situation has arisen. The situation referred to is commonly imprisonment or hospitalization during the sender's absence from home.

Significantly, while these requests are e-mailed to the contact addresses of the hijacked account, the owner of that account doesn't get to know anything. Said Iain McEwan, OPP Const. in Peterborough County (Ontario, Canada), the scam's success depends on people becoming emotional and taking hasty decisions.