It can happen here: Scams a-plenty

[Doyle Phillips]

Amigos, beware.

Yesterday, an elderly friend in SMA received an email to the effect that his deposit was needed immediately at a certain Banamex
account and that it was to be made through OXXO. He deposited the $7000 pesos and at the same time he was apparently asked for
a reference. The poor old guy (fortunately he is very rich) gave the reference of a friend here in Guanajuato.

We'll call the GTO friend "Mr. Jones".

Not long after Mr. Jones received a telephone call from a person who said he was "David Jones" and that he was a cousin of our Mr. Jones
and that he was in México and coming to GTO. Could Mr. Jones recommend a hotel and they would meet on arrival. Mr. Jones was wary
but gave DJ the name of a hotel.

Not long after that DJ called Mr. Jones saying he would be delayed: he was involved in a car accident and needed to borrow some money
immediately or would be taken to jail. Mr. Jones declined to lend the money.

Then DJ called again begging for assistance but Mr. Jones advised him that though the food might be less than desireable in the jail it would
be better than nothing.

Tell your elderly friends to be on guard.

[DonaldW]

I once got an email from friend Owen Lee in Zijua telling me a very sad tale about him being in the hospital and not having money to pay for an operation, about to die and that he was going to have to sell his hotel and would pay me back. He needed $2000. Since I knew him and knew he was ill when I left him, I was really close to making the loan when I noticed that the words he was using in his emails didn't really sound like him.

Turns out that his yahoo email account was hacked and the email went to every one of his previous guests. Not sure what happened with this but I sent the email on to all Mexico authorities I could find and to Yahoo. Never heard back from any of them but I am sure someone if not many fell for this scam because of the elderly Owen in his failing health brought sympathy to all of us.

[colleen]

I wish I could remember the details of a scam that was sent to me. It was about "your friend Mr. Gene Byron". It specifically mentioned MR. Oh well, that one wasn't going to work. It's interesting that they so often don't do English very well. It must work tho, or they wouldn't keep doing it.