MetaChat - "Urgent Assistance Needed!!!"

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06 August 2010

"Urgent Assistance Needed!!!" - kellydamnit? Hello, MeCha folk! Sorry for having been a stranger, but this morning I received a rather harrowing email request from kellydamnit.

Can anyone tell me if this a spoofed spam message? Is she in some sort of mortal danger or in dire circumstances?

Thanks!

post by: Frisbee Girl at: 11:01 | 20 comments

It's fake. Another friend of mine had her Gmail account compromised a couple of weeks ago and had the same kind of message sent to everyone in her address book.

posted by BoringPostcards 06 August | 11:07

Did you try searching key phrases in Google to determine if it was a hoax? One of my aunts was in "dire" trouble recently, and yeah... IOW, what BoPo said.

posted by TrishaLynn 06 August | 11:08

Does it say she's in London and all her money and documents have been stolen? A friend of mine had that hoax coming from his email lately - I knew it was fake because it said "fam" instead of "family" and you could steal all my friend's money and documents and plane tickets and also throw him in a cell and torture him for days and he would still never use the word fam.

posted by mygothlaundry 06 August | 11:12

That's the one, MGL.

I just found out I have this same email from kellydamnit.

posted by BoringPostcards 06 August | 11:15

Thanks, BP!

Trish, that's a good idea that I usually would have followed. Unfortunately, enough of my last interactions with MetaChat involved drama on a level spectacular enough that I didn't see this as being in any way beyond the pale. The only flag is that Kelly seemed rather centered and in a good place the last time read anything from her. The thought that it was a spam was more hope and optimism than my internet savvy kicking in. [And yes, I'll take the shame on that.]

MGL, what BP said.

Thanks, all!

posted by Frisbee Girl 06 August | 11:21

Does it say she's in London and all her money and documents have been stolen?

A friend of mine got that same message from his ex-girlfriend. She had had her gmail account hacked.

posted by octothorpe 06 August | 11:26

Call yourselves an online community? Aren't you going to help the poor girl and send her the money? Sheesh.

posted by Senyar 06 August | 11:31

oh that's funny -- I got the email too, but I didn't even see whose email address it was from, I just glanced at the subject line and trashed it.

I am obviously a terrible person.

posted by gaspode 06 August | 11:43

I already sent her all my money Senyar. As a result, I'm a little cash poor at the moment and I suddenly find myself in need of a plane ticket to Uruguay (fam emergency) but, as previously mentioned, I'm broke! :(

Anyhoo... if any of you kind souls would like to help a fellow bunny out, e-mail's in my profile. (NO PRAYERS OR BEST WISHES PLZ ONLY CA$H!!)

posted by Atom Eyes 06 August | 11:43

If you're short of cash, I know someone who has several million dollars who needs some help getting it out of Nigeria.

posted by Obscure Reference 06 August | 12:30

I smell another great question lurking here for our fake AskMeFi thread.

posted by bearwife 06 August | 12:53

How does a gmail acct get hacked? Just by someone guessing passwords?

My gmail account asks me to verify my password at varying times, sometimes several days in a row, sometimes not for weeks. Is this because people are trying to guess my password?

posted by DarkForest 06 August | 13:19

My mom recently got this same message from my great aunt.... In which my supposed 92-year-old great aunt repeatedly used the phrase "freaked out."

My folks hadn't heard of this scam, and the thing that raised their suspicions was that phrasing. So, at least they were paying attention, I guess.

posted by mudpuppie 06 August | 14:07

Good question, DarkForest. I would think they have some kind of bot that tries to guess passwords. I've always been told that having numbers and punctuation marks makes the password exponentially more secure, but am not sure why.

posted by Melismata 06 August | 14:41

I didn't get it from kellydammit, but one of our good local friends was a victim of this yesterday. In his version, he was in Scotland -- and they actually got into his Facebook, too, and did something to his account so that you couldn't see him on FB at all to communicate with him.

posted by Miko 06 August | 15:08

The email I got from kellydamnit said she was in Wales.

posted by Senyar 06 August | 15:17

Has anyone tried to reach kellydammit an alternate way, to let her know she was hacked? I mean, she probably already does, but if it just happened and she doesn't use the account much, it might be good to give her a heads-up.

posted by Miko 06 August | 15:32

Kelly knows, Miko, she posted something on FB.

posted by Senyar 06 August | 15:35

My dad's account was hacked right after he came to see me in NY. I knew it wasn't right because there was no reason why he'd be in the UK.

posted by brujita 07 August | 03:28

Wow. It showed up in a Yahoo group that I'm a member of. I had no idea Kelly was as well.

posted by deborah 07 August | 17:48

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