Here’s an interesting postscript to recent money scams, courtesy of The Melbourne Age (via the Indonesian Expat Newsletter). An Australian received an email promising him money for nothing; he replied with his details to the sender of the email and found within a couple of hours $23,000 in his bank account. He was then asked to send 90% of that amount to an address. He then went to the police. According to The Age, however, the man then tried to extract more money, asking for another $50,000. He was then sent a further $30,600.
The man believes the money comes the bank accounts of victims of recent ‘phishing’ scams, whereby they are lured to websites which trap their online banking details, and subsequently empty their accounts. He apparently uncovered a number of websites he believed were part of the same scam. As The Age points out, this sort of scam has been around for at least a few months. I confess it’s the first I’d read about it.