For some time, people have been receiving fake emergency text messages from scammers.

Often, the message seems to be from a friend and claims the sender is in an emergency situation and desperately needs money to get home or to pay hospital bills or to pay hotel bills etc. Usually the sender claims to have been mugged or their hotel room robbed or their phone has been stolen so they have had to borrow one etc.

It’s always an emergency and only you can help.

Most people have learned that these scams happen and will either ignore such a message or attempt to verify it rather than simply sending out money.

Here’s an example of an email version of this scam, where the scammer has taken the trouble to learn the name of a family member (probably from social media).

I’m hoping you get this on time as i’m writing with a troubled heart i knew it was a long shot and i should have thought of all this sooner,i couldn’t inform everyone Hannah has been diagnosed with advance liver cancer. We have been going through a lot with the Chemo it’s been very challenging for us so we both decided to get away from this saddening times just the two of us we are in Istanbul, Turkey everything was fine until on our way back to the hotel we were attacked and robbed all cash, credit card and mobile phones were stolen.

 We are working with the local authorities providing details for investigation this process might take days due to some paper works, I’ve also made contact with my bank in order to block our cards also it would take 3-5 working days to process funds into my account which i can’t access from here, the bad news is our flight will be leaving very soon but I am having problems with the hotel bills. I need your help i am sorry if i got you at the wrong time but could you please loan me some money  I’ll appreciate whatsoever you can give if you can’t help with everything and I promise to make the refund once I get back home safely.

If you receive an emergency message from someone you know, asking for money – do verify it’s real before sending money.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.