A series of phishing email scams targeting amateurs have been showing up across the region. These schemes involve persuading the intended victim to purchase gift cards on behalf of a known acquaintance.
Assistant Section Manager Phil Temples, K9HI, received one such message this afternoon purporting to be from a Western MA section staff member asking, “I was wondering if i can get a quick favor from you. Is there any grocery store around you?”
PART of Westford club president George Allison, K1IG, wrote to the PART membership:
“Emails are being sent from bogus ham email addresses to the PART website info address and to individual hams using callbook or QRZ.com addresses. The emails look like they came from a ham since they have a call sign as the originating address. The emails ask for info on local stores, probably to scam you into buying gift cards. I got one today and checked with the real ham (whose email address I had) and he verified that it wasn’t from him.”
If you receive one of these messages, be sure to send it to the junk mail folder.