How creepy! I just got an email purportedly from Rev. Steve Aschmann that reads:
Hello,
How are you doing?hope all is well with you and family,i am sorry that i didn’t inform you about my traveling to England for a program called Empowering youth to fight racism,Hiv/Aids,and lack of education.
I need a favor from you as soon as you receive this e-mail, I misplaced my wallet on my way to the hotel where my money,and other valuable things were kept. Urgently assist me with a soft loan of $2,500 to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home.
I will appreciate whatever you can afford and i’ll pay you back as soon as i return,Kindly let me know if you can be of help? so that i can send you the details to use when sending the money through western union.
Regards,
Steve Aschmann.
It sounded extremely suspicious, not to mention the fact that Steve’s grammar and spelling is quite good. I emailed back and asked him to call me on my cell phone. I also called the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Erie, and they verified that his account had been hacked.
I didn’t want anyone to be taken in, so I forwarded an email to the Erie GLBT email list, and the United NeoPagan Council of Lake Erie board and Erie Pagans Yahoo group lists. I also posted an article at the Erie Gay News site.
I got a call back from Rev. Steve, and it seems that this had created all kinds of problems for him. He was touched by people who had contacted him to see if this was the case. Quite a few of them were wise and replied to the email, asking for more details that they could verify.
I had sent a reply and got one back. No identifying info or clarification. How dumb does the forger think I am?
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