An email scam is going around currently from individuals breaching personal emails and asking their contacts for gift cards.
One upstate resident said he fell prey to the scam because of the fact that it came from a close friend’s personal email.
"From what I understand, I was not the only one that was caught in this," that upstate resident said. "Every time I hear somebody tell me about something, I've said 'nope that's a scam. Don't do that. Don't give out this; don't do that, don't do this. And then I get caught in it."
He said the scam began with an email from a close friend who said they were on the road and needed him to buy gift cards for them that they wanted to give as a gift to a friend who was dying of cancer.
The scammer asked him to scratch off the code on the gift cards, take a picture, and send it through email. When he asked about using phone instead because of email concerns, the scammer made the excuse that the phone was dead and unavailable at the time.
Not long after following the scammer's directions, his close friend had gotten back on their email and warned him that their email had been breached and he had been scammed.
If you receive an email from a friend asking for money, be sure to contact them more directly, such as by a phone call, to ensure that it isn’t actually one of these scammer who just gained access to their email.
Also, be sure to stay up to date on information from local law enforcement regarding currently known scams.
