New Scam Involves Disposable Email Addresses (ICYMI)

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is advising residents of recent reports of scams where the suspects are utilizing various disposable email services.

Disposable email services allow a user to create a temporary, one-time-use disposable email address. Recently, the sheriff’s office has received several reports from victims who received emails from suspects using the temporary accounts and attempting to scam the recipients out of money.

In most cases, the recipients of these emails have been attempting to sell items online and receive a check by mail from the suspects made out in an amount larger than the purchase or asking price. The suspect then asks the victim to wire the extra monies to an account.

The victim learns several days later that they have been scammed, after they deposit the suspect’s check in their bank account, only to find out the check is fraudulent.

In light of these recent cases, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office reminds residents to:

• Never open an email if you do not recognize the sender’s name or the domain of the email address;
• Never open attachments or links in an email unless you are sure the sender is trustworthy;
• Make sure the sender is really the one whose name appears as “From” by checking the email name and domain.

Some of the disposable email domain names include dispostable, getairmail, 10minutemail, guerrillamail, mailinator and 33mail.

If you’re a Loudoun resident and believe you were a victim of this scam or of a similar scam, please contact the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office at 703-777-1021 or file a report online here.

Scams are occurring with great frequency and take various forms. Residents can also find information on a variety of consumer scams athttp://www.lookstoogoodtobetrue.com/ It’s a website developed and maintained by a joint federal law enforcement and industry task force.