Beware of Internet hijackers!

Monday morning, July 5, my cell phone beeped incessantly from 8 a.m. until the next few days. Overseas calls and texts from stunned and worried friends here and abroad poured in wanting to know if I was safe in the Philippines and not in Kent, Dover, mugged at gunpoint, as the e-mail stated. I have around 300 people on my Yahoo list of contacts and all of them received an e-mail supposedly from me and this was my message:  

“Hi! Hope you get this on time. Sorry I did not inform you about my sudden trip to United Kingdom for a program. I am presently in Kent, Dover and having difficulties. Last night I got mugged at gunpoint on my way back to the hotel where I booked. They went away with all I had including my wallet where I have all my cash and credit cards and also my cell phone. I was not injured because I quickly complied. My traveling documents are been apprehended by the hotel management because of my inability to settle bills. I am confused and so full of panic right now. For now I do not have a phone where I can be reached. All I have got here is my mail. I also have limited access with the computer. Please, I need you to kindly loan me about 1,450 pounds to sort out my hotel bills and other expenses incurred here and get back home soon as I don’t feel safe here anymore. I promise to reimburse immediately on my return. I will explain full details when I get back. Let me know if you can be of any help soon because you are the only person I can reach at this moment and the next flight back home departs in about two days. Hope I can count on you. 

Friends who just saw me or who have just communicated with me knew right away that it was a scam and my computer got hacked. But others, most notably my friends from overseas believed the e-mail and replied, “Where can I send you the money?” (thinking it was Mayenne asking for help). I have to mention one friend’s communication with the thieves in particular because it is unique.  Jean Pierre Grivory, (a Frenchman living in Brussels) has been my friend for the past 30 years and will go thru hell and high waters to save my life. He was so alarmed when he received the e-mail that he replied instantly, “Where can I send you the money? What hotel are you in so I can talk to the hotel manager to guarantee for you.” The thieves replied with some personal touch, which made me so furious because it meant they went though all my private correspondence:

Dear JP Grivory, Thank you for your empathy and kind response. I knew I could confide in you that was why I actually wrote you. *ARE YOU STILL IN BRUSSELS and when was the last time you heard from our friends JOJO Z and LULU TG? (Personal touch to make him believe it’s me) I am being denied access to most things here. However, you can drop me a message on this line — +44 7024 61 897. It actually belongs to the hotel manager here. Just want you to come to my aid, any amount you are able raise will help a lot… Please send via Western Union so I can receive as quickly as possibly on the details below: Receiver’s Name: Mayenne Carmona; Receiver’s Address/location: 83A High Street, Ashford, Kent TN 24 8SA. Please once you get the money transferred, kindly help me scan a copy of the transfer receipt or help me write out the transfer details and get back to me quickly.

When he saw the address Ashford, Kent, he was so happy because coincidentally, he has a friend there. So he replied, “Mayenne, I have a friend living in Ashford, Kent and he will bring you the money personally and get you out of there. That will be the fastest way, instead of sending you the money via Western Union. I want to talk to your hotel manager because my friend is on his way to bail you out!”  

The thieves (Mayenne) replied:

Don’t send through your friend. Send via Western Union per my instructions. The hotel manager is not Turkish but Indian and I don’t trust him. I don’t want you to talk to him. He has been rude and harsh… He threatened to arrest me if the debt is not settled soon… 

At that point, JP got suspicious and knew something was not kosher. He decided to call my cell at 1 a.m. Manila time and was happy to hear that I was home safe in the Philippines. Then he told me what transpired in the e-mails between him and my hijackers. He called up his friend in Kent to tell him that I was safe at home and to check out the address and telephone number given by the thieves. The address was a Thomas Cook Travel Agency and the person who answered had a Middle-Eastern accent. He reported the incident and gave all the details to the London Metropolitan Police Fraud Squad in the hope that they could bust this syndicate of Internet hijackers whose main agenda is to extort money. So far no report yet from the London Police. On my part, I sent e-mails and texts to a lot of my contacts assuring them that I was at home safe in Manila and not mugged in Kent. I warned them, too, to protect their e-mail addresses with extra security measures. The next day, I asked Tourism Undersecretary Cynthia Carrion to connect me with an officer of the British Embassy here so I can report the incident. The officer in charge asked me to give him a detailed report of how, when, where it happened so he can forward it to the rightful authorities in the UK. Becky Garcia had a similar experience last year and the whereabouts of her hijackers was Scotland, UK. The British Embassy officer I spoke to said that incidents like these are an everyday occurrence and that it started in the Eighties but the modus operandi of the thieves then was hacking peoples’ bank accounts.

If you use your e-mail a lot like I do, here are some tips from experts so as to avoid going through my experience and saving your friends some anxiety and good money (those who send money can not in any way retrieve it back):

1. Change your password every two months.

2. If you must use a public Internet service, don’t forget to log out. Don’t leave your information behind for the next user to find it. Becky Garcia suspects her e-mail address got hijacked because she used a public Internet in Dubai and she did not log out.

3. Delete most of your unimportant past correspondences so thieves cannot access information of your contacts. The important documents should be kept in a separate folder or in a USB port.

4. Avoid doing bank transactions over the Internet. Do it the old fashion way — pre-Internet days. Avoid putting all your information-credit card number, bank account number etc. via e-mail.

5. If you read a letter such as the one printed here, spread the word around that it’s a scam so as to protect the reputation of your friend who got hi jacked. One acquaintance in my contact address told a friend, “Why should Mayenne write me asking for money, we are not even close!”

6. If you have the power to report the scam to some higher authority, do so. Don’t be so jaded thinking that these incidents are an everyday occurrence. These syndicates have to be exposed and the thieves put behind bars. They are a menace to society.