Thursday, April 21, 2011

COMPUTER FRAUD
Recently a 78 year old North Bay female was contacted via email advising her that she may be entitled to retrieve millions of dollars from a bank account in Nigeria. The email requested an initial payment to ‘register’ the account in the woman’s name so that the funds could be made available to her.

Some money was sent to Nigeria via Western Union which prompted further emails requesting larger amounts to be sent via direct bank transfer to accounts in California and the United Kingdom. In this case the victim sent in excess of $7500 to the fraudsters and has no reasonable expectation of being able to retrieve these funds.

The North Bay Police Service would like to caution members of the public not to send money or personal information to anyone in response to these types of emails or to anyone else by phone or computer where you did not initiate the contact. If in doubt, please contact Police or Phone busters to for advice. Remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is! Cst. Steve Brown is investigating.