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SCAM HITS HEMPOLOGY@GMAIL, by Ted Smith
By Hempology | January 8, 2008
Do not send money to Nigeria! Internet scam artists took over hempology@gmail.com on Friday Nov 23 and sent emails to all of my contacts claiming that I was stuck in Nigeria and was going to jail if I did not receive $1,500 to pay for my hotel bill. The press was quick to jump on the story, having received the emails, too. The A-Channel made sure to get an interview while I was still really mad. CBC Radio had me on their program, ALL POINTS WEST, at 5 pm and the Times Colonist wrote a larger story on the email scam in Saturday’s edition.
The scam we fell victim to is commonly referred to as “phishing? where the fraud artist sends an email that appears to come from a legitimate institution like a bank or credit card company. In my case, I received an email that looked like it came from GMAIL, the internet service that we used for our email account. I told a co-worker of the email and told him to confirm that the message actually came from GMAIL. Instead, he sent the password to the scam artist, who proceeded to block our access to the hempology account and send emails to everyone I had contact with for years. Anyone who knows anything about me knew the email was a fraud. The writing is so poor that one friend said she knew it could not have come from me. The very idea that I could be, “traveling to West Africa for a Conference, the Conference is taking place in three major countries in West Africa i.e. South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria,? is shocking to anyone who knows my financial and legal situation. The fact that South Africa is not in West Africa is another indication of the limited education of the person behind the scam. Sending the email to the press was not very smart, either.
While this incident has been good for a few laughs, we have had to get a new email address and do a lot of work fixing newsletters and pamphlets with our new contact information. We can now be reached at hemp101@shaw.ca.
Topics: Articles, CD-16th, Winter 2008 | Comments Off
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