E-MAIL SCAM ! ! ! NOTE !

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My wife and I came within a keystroke of being scammed out of a good chunk of money.

This is how it started: We received an email from a friend of ours stating she was stranded in England. She had been robbed of her passbook, credit cards and photo IDs. She had bills to pay and a ticket to fly home. She even gave an address where she stayed. Western Union would be the best way.

Calling WU we found out one needs a photo ID to claim the money. We went to bed for the night. Next morning the answer from the friend (scammers) was that the embassy had issued a temporary ID.

My wife had a constant bad feeling about the thing. We weren't able to answer the initial email for five or more hours. This had her thinking that surely one of her many friends had responded before we did.

So, we called our friend, just seconds before we pushed the button. She, herself, answered her phone. "I'm not in England, I'm at home having a cup of coffee!

AFTER I LOOKED AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS CLOSELY, I FOUND AN "i" WAS ADDED TO OUR FRIEND'S EMAIL ADDRESS.