E-mail from a private party
Complaint 26831 Details

I received an e-mail supposedly from a client of mine using his e-mail address [email protected] explaining that he & his family were in the UK and had been in an accident, lost his cell phone & money and needed cash to get home. It was extremely believable & used his signature - he also travels, so . . .I had no reason to think it wasn't him. He was supposedly at a hospital in London. I wired money via Western Union. The next morning, a request for more money came saying that they needed more to buy the airline ticket - that didn't seem right - and I called the mobile # in the signature and it was someone else. I checked it against the number I had on file & it was one digit off. Reached my client & he was here in the US - he never sent an e-mail & had been fielding calls all day since his e-mail apparently had been hijacked. I called Western Union & they basically said "nothing they could do" even though I do wonder about their lax identification process for someone to pick up funds when wired. . . I would think some responsiblity for verification should be with them.