Cllr Peter Golds has become one of the latest victims of the “I am stranded and need money” email scam. The scam involves hackers taking over the victim’s email account and sending out an email to everyone in their address book. The email states that the victim has been robbed while on holiday and asks the recipient to send money so that they can get back home.
On Wednesday, 17th June, various individuals in Tower Hamlets received emails stating that Cllr Peter Golds was stranded in Manila. He had been hurt and robbed and he needed to pay his hotel bill before the hotel would release his luggage.
Most recipients would have realised quickly that the email was fake. Emails of this nature have been circulating for several years. This email, like most of them, was written in less than perfect English – and it’s hardly the time of the political year at which Cllr Golds would feel the need to holiday in Manila. It is not known whether any recipients have believed the email was genuine and have attempted to wire money to Cllr Golds.
Cllr Golds has never, to the best of our knowledge, used a town hall email address, an option which is made available to all councillors – preferring to use his own email address “cllrpetergolds@aol.com”. Perhaps Cllr Golds felt that an email address ending “@towerhamlets.gov.uk” would not be safe: however, it now seems that the address ending “.aol.com” (America online) has not afforded him the safety he sought.
For rather obvious reasons, we have not yet contacted Cllr Golds for his comments on this cyber attack! Constituents or others trying to contact him are also best advised to exercise caution if using Cllr Golds’s email address and not to assume any emails they have sent have got through to him.
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•Internet safety: many hacking cases such as this occur when the victim has been using an internet café or other open site and has not logged off properly. Always make sure you log off when using an internet café – don’t just close down your programme and go. Also, always look around when using an internet café to see whether nearby users appear to be using the internet themselves. Hackers sometimes log on to what you are doing while you are in a café and using a connection which is not secure: they can then harvest your address book and passwords.