New Scam Aimed at Families of Missing Persons

If you are a family member of a missing person, please be aware that there is a new scam aimed at families of missing persons via email.

The scammer will email you and claim that he/she has information about your missing loved one. If you send them an email to ask for more information, you will get a response asking for money, generally $10,000.

THIS IS NOT REAL. THIS PERSON DOES NOT KNOW THE WHEREABOUTS OF YOUR MISSING LOVED ONE. IT IS A SCAM.

Below is a sample of a letter sent to a family member after they responded to this person. I removed the missing person's name and added "X".


"Dear X,

X is being held against his will in a remote area of the city.

I know the kidnappers address and the exact location on the property were they are holding X and few other people captive.

I will only give you the address and the exact location on the property were he is being held if you can pay $20,000 dollars only.You will pay $10,000 dollars in advance and pay up the balance amount of $10,000 dollars when i give you the address and he is rescued.

For security reasons i want to remain anonymous so please don't inform the police or anybody about my communication with you until i give you the exact location of were he is being held.If you inform the police or anybody about my communication with you now you wont hear from me again and i wont give you the information you need.

Awaiting your reply

John"

What should you do if you get one of these emails?

1) You can simpy choose to delete it.

2) You can report it to your local FBI office http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm

3) You can forward this email with full headers attached to spam@uce.gov
http://spam.getnetwise.org/action/ftc

4) Contact your ISP and the ISP of the scammer. http://spam.getnetwise.org/action/isp

Sites to aid in understanding:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/index.html

How to add headers: http://spam.getnetwise.org/action/header/

Protect yourself from SPAM/SCAMS: http://spam.getnetwise.org/tips/

This is one of many reasons why Project Jason recommends that families of the missing not publish contact information openly on the internet.

If anyone has instructions on how to get header info on other types of email, such as Yahoo, GMail, Hotmail, etc, please feel free to add that here.

Thank you.

Kelly Jolkowski, Mother of Missing Jason Jolkowski
President and Founder,
Project Jason
www.projectjason.org
Please help us with Jason's Birthday Campaign:
http://www.projectjason.org/forums/index.php?topic=3021.0

Thanks to Maureen for this info:

For Yahoo:

To get the header there is a button on right hand side of the upper screen, above the date/time of the email that says Standard Header and then there is a down arrow. If they click on the down arrow they can choose Full Header. It will pop up in another box so they will have to copy and paste it into a word processing package even better just into Notepad (Start>All Programs>Accessories) so it doesn't add any code on to it.

For Google:

For Gmail:

Log in to Gmail.
Open the message you'd like to view headers for.
Click the down arrow next to Reply, at the top-right of the message pane.
Select Show original.
The full headers will appear in a new window.

Dear Kelly,

Thank you so much for posting this warning.

It is amazing the level of low one will stoop to isn't it?

There is no low that is too low for these scumbags is there? I hope no family falls for this. It makes my blood boil to just think of it.

Sadly, this wasn't the first, and it won't be the last.

I've also had families get emails that were variations of the Nigerian Scam emails. In these emails, the scammer would pretend to be the family member and ask for money to be sent to get him/her back home from a foreign country.

yea i got one of these jerks that emailed me for $10,000 and even though i knew it was a scam i reported it to the rcmp in case they can find the predators through the link they provided me, anything to help the authorities help stop these selfish *&&*%*&^ !! insensitive, selfish, uncaring advantage-taking *advertiser censored**holes....prayers to all here

I have received at least two of the e-mails from these creeps this year. Sometimes they are quite easy to spot when the words "your missing loved one" is used instead of his/he name. At lease four parents with missing kids have received the exact same email. Local LE and the FBI have been notified.

Don't ever give out any money upfront. Most missing persons have a reward offered and that should be enough.

The family of Nicole Vienneau missing in Syria got one of these emails too. Disgraceful!