Very often the fraudsters use the names of prominent names and companies to attract attention of trustful people to scam them. Usually scammers send messages on behalf of banks and various financial institutions, however this time they went even far sending messages in the name of the FBI officials.
Many of the spam e-mails currently in circulation claim to be an "official order" from the FBI's Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division, from an alleged FBI unit in Nigeria, confirm an inheritance or contain a lottery notification, all informing recipients they have been named the beneficiary of millions of dollars. To claim the large sum, recipients are instructed to furnish their personally identifiable information (PII) and are often threatened with some type of penalty, such as prosecution, if they fail to do so. Specific PII information requested includes, but is not limited to, the recipient's name, banking information, telephone number, and a copy of their passport, reported Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
“The FBI does not send unsolicited e-mails of this nature. FBI Executives are briefed on numerous investigations but do not personally contact consumers regarding such matters. In addition, the IC3 does not send threatening letters to consumers demanding payments for Internet crimes. Consumers should not respond to any unsolicited e-mails or click on any embedded links associated with such e-mails, as they may contain viruses or malware,” warned IC3.
