Don't be caught out by this nasty scam

Barbara Liddell writes: 

If you have young adult or grown-up children visiting or living abroad you will be used to being the 'last resort' for them, watering plants, cancelling the milk, ringing the doctor's surgery about an appointment or a prescription. Unfortunately scammers know this too. I was texted at 5am in the morning with a message that seemed to come from my daughter in India. 'Hello Mum' the message said, her phone was broken, and she was using the phone of a friend. It all sounded very plausible, at 5am in the morning. A further text said she had bills to pay, which I knew she normally did by phone, could I help? Again, all very plausible. It took my husband Don ringing my daughter on the 'broken' phone number for us to discover that we were being scammed. It was very sobering. I could so easily have responded to that plea for help, and exposed us to other con artists.

This is a personal appeal from me: think at least twice before you respond to anything of this nature. It's a bit like how fortune tellers work, they use general information which most people will identify with, and then once you've responded they tailor their next move to what you have said. Please look at emails that look personal and ask 'Is this personal to me?' It may be an idea to have a code word or number that you use in the family that you bury in the text of your emails - just an idea.

Keep safe, and don't be a victim of this nasty, thoughtless scam. If people used half of the effort doing good that they spend doing harm, the world would be a much better place.

Barbara.