A few days ago I received the strangest e-mail. It was from my father. The subject was "I need your help". Hmmm... Odd... It was written in English. And even weirder, why didn't he call instead? I smell something fishy about the e-mail. And the odour got even more foul when I read the e-mail. It said that he was (my father) in London!

I became clear all of the sudden, that the e-mail was a fraud. Somebody hacked into my father's account somehow, and sending e-mails, probably to all of his contacts, and... get this, asking for money! The e-mail said that he lost his luggage along all of his documents and money. So, you can figure, the sender of the e-mail was asking for some money. Below is a copy of it:

Hi, How are you doing today? I am sorry i didn't inform you about my traveling to UK, but It has been a very sad and bad moment for me over here and the present condition that i found myself is very hard for me to explain, am really stranded in UK because i forgot my little bag in the Taxi where my money, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way to the Hotel am staying, I am facing a hard time here because i have no money on me to clear my Hotel bill, you are the only person i could reach at this point, i already spoke to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively. 

I have limited access to emails for now because i dont have money to go online here, i need you to help me out with a sum of  $1,500 or any amount you can afford for now so i can pay the hotel bills, I need this help so much and on time because i am in a terrible and tight situation here, I don't even have money to feed myself for a day which means i had been starving so please understand how terrible it is.
 
Use the information below to send the funds 
Name: *my father's name*
ADDRESS:16 Leinster Square,
CITY:Bayswater, London 
COUNTRY:UK
ZIPCODE:W2 4PR

Please kindly help me send the money today, immediately you have the money sent to me, kindly help me scan a copy of the receipt paper given to you at the bank or western union outlet, or you help me write out the necessary details on the receipt paper out for me. 
Sender full name and address:
10 Digits Money transfer control number:
Total amount sent: 

Send this so i can get the money and receive it and promise to pay back your money as soon as i return home 
 
Please i will be waiting to hear from you soon... 
Sincerely, 

I intended to tell my father about this when I went home in the weekend. But due to tight schedule, I have to leave Bogor in Sunday morning, and didn't have a lot of time to chat with him. So, it slipped my mind. The case instantly brought back to my attention when just now I received an e-mail from his friend in Japan. He asked how my dad was doing, and asked for a contact number to call my dad in London. Evidently, the hacker sent e-mails to all of my dad's contacts and asked for money.

After I replied my dad's friend's e-mail, I immediately sent a text message to my dad telling him about this. So now he is aware of this matter. It turns out that he can't logged into his account since two or three days ago. I'm not sure if he can regain his e-mail address.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, don't instantly believe that your dad is in London, especially when you just met him a few days ago at home. Oh, and pick somebody who doesn't have a son working for the Department of Foreign Affairs. It just doesn't make sense that the embassy would ignore father of a diplomat :D.