Halton Borough Council has issued a warning about the scam email below, clearly written with a male recipient in mind, has been received by a female Runcorn resident who does not, and has never, belonged to a dating website.
The scammer is pretending to be a young woman from a dating website who will be travelling to the UK next weekend and wants to meet up with the recipient in a hotel and at no expense to the recipient. The scammer states they have put a photograph of themselves on the dating website and encourages the recipient to click the link to view it.
The scammer is hoping to tempt a recipient who may be feeling lonely, or just curious, to open the link which is likely to download malware to the recipients computer/device.
Note, some of the more explicit content in the email has been redacted.
Halton Borough Council’s Executive Board Member for Trading Standards, Cllr Dave Cargill, said: “If you or somebody you know has been caught out by a scam please contact one of our specialist officers, Linda or Sue on 0151 511 8785 or 0151 511 8775, who are already working with people in Halton who have lost thousands of pounds to scams.”
If you need advice on anything else please contact the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline or 03454 04 05 06
If you receive an email like this, delete it without opening and without clicking on any links