Last week I found myself taking part in an episode of PhoneJacker – only in this case it was EmailJacker.
I’m sure you know the drill. They get in. Wipe your contacts and then send them the following, or something similar:-
“I’m writing this with tears in my eyes. My trip to Madrid has turned into a nightmare as I was mugged at gun-point. They took everything my passport, my cell (note the use of the word cell – a dead giveaway) and all my money. The British Embassy won’t help and I have an outstanding hotel bill of 3000 euros. ”
Then it’s a case of “Send Eight pounds and twenty-three pence, cash money, to this address”.
An interesting use of one of our most-used forms of communication. No-one fell for it.
Why? Because they know my writing style – and they also know I always spell-check, even e-mails. After all, that’s my business.
Getting scammed is a valuable lesson for any business. It tells you how important security is, and how passwords should be numbers as well as letters, and upper and lower case. It tells you that you should change your security details regularly.
It also tells you that how you write is ESSENTIAL in business. Creating your own style is a must.
Make a note of how to contact your e-mail security people. It took me several days to actually talk to someone at BTyahoo.
For reference, their phone number is 0808 100 4332.
So here I am on a Monday morning, de-scammed and much wiser.
Time to get back on my cell and wipe the tears from my eyes.
About Philippa