CLEARLAKE ? A fraudulent e-mail has surfaced claiming Clearlake City Councilmember Joyce Overton to be stranded in Malaysia. Overton said on Thursday that she is not stranded nor is she in need of any monetary assistance as so requested in the e-mail.
The fraudulent e-mail was sent from Overton”s personal e-mail address. It claims that she is stranded in Malaysia and in need of $3,400 to pay hotel, travel and food costs in order to return home.
The e-mail claims that Overton has lost her identification documents and requests that money be sent via Western Union to a person described as a hotel manager.
The e-mail further claims that Overton has no access to telephone communications and that she was using a computer at a public library to send the transmission.
“If we had a U.S. citizen on foreign soil in need of help, they could go directly to one of our embassies,” Clearlake Police Chief Allan McClain said. “This is a blatant attempt to steal money from people who care enough about others to try to help.”
Overton said the whole ordeal has been a nightmare and that she has no idea how her information was stolen.
“The only thing I can think of is that this sounds like the same thing that happened to Pat Wiggins and I was in her e-mail list,” Overton said.
Overton said that the situation has made it impossible for her to access her Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts because she uses the same security code for both accounts.
“This has really taught me a lesson. I can”t even access my own accounts now,” she said. “I thought I had a good security code but I guess not. People should make sure they use (a security code) that they use no where else, ever.”
Getting assistance from service providers has also presented problems for Overton.
“There”s really no place to call and get help when something like this happens,” she said. “That should really be changed and this is one of the things I”m going to be taking to the state.”
A similar incident happened to Senator Pat Wiggins recently. Overton said she intends to discuss the matter with Wiggins in hopes of initiating legislation to address service providers” responsibility in such situations.
Contact Denise Rockenstein at drockenstein@clearlakeobserver.com.
