Members of the Historical Society of Broken Hill have received a series of emails this week from an unidentifiable email address, pretending to be the organisation’s president, Jim Daly, but the scam type emails are not from Mr Daly.
The Society president has had to ensure all members it’s not him, and he’s called the scam out publicly to make other locals aware such schemes are up and running in Broken Hill.
“Somebody’s using the Society’s emailing and mailing address to contact members and by the sounds of it, is asking for a donation or money,” Mr Daly told us.
“We thought, well, it didn’t come from me and it’s not anyone who’s part of the Historical Society’s way of doing anything, so we thought the best thing we could do, because we don’t know who’s doing it, is let people know that we don’t operate like that,” said Mr Daly.
“I don’t communicate like that. If I need to discuss something with somebody, I get in touch with them personally or with the phone and we make an appointment and we go from there.”
Mr Daly said up to nine members had received the email and alerted him to it.
“I don’t know what we can do to stop it. It sounds like somebody’s hacked in somewhere.”
“Each person thought it was quite unusual that I sent them an email saying that I needed to contact them when I know where they are and I see most of them face to face anyway.
“I don’t know what we can do to stop it. It sounds like somebody’s hacked in somewhere but they must have a list of the Society’s people because they’re the ones they seem to be contacting.
“I haven’t been contacted by anybody who’s not a member of the Society with an unusual email request or receive one. They must have a list of our members so it’s hard to say where they got it from.”
The emails were first brought to Mr Daly’s attention by Society member and Journal Editor, Gary Cook, who initially responded to the email and after a series of back and forth replies, caught on that it might’ve been a scam. The contents of the exchange also included the name of Historical Society Treasurer, Don McKinnon, and a standard ‘asking for money’ request, and a request to remain using the method of email.
“First time I got the email, my first response was a little bit of suspicion,” said Mr Cook.
“As soon as you hear about, “can you help me out financially?” I’m alert to those scams.
“The first thing I did once I realised there might be something suspicious was ring Jim Daly, just to confirm that he’d sent the email. To me, that is the first step, that’s the trick to me, to check it out.”
Upon hearing it wasn’t Mr Daly sending the scam emails, Mr Cook put in a report on Scamwatch, and wants to warn others of the potential for scammers to take advantage of unsuspecting and well-intentioned, kind-hearted people.
“I tend to find, if there’re spelling mistakes, that that’s a really good indicator someone’s scamming,” Mr Cook said.
“I’d just like everybody to be aware that there’s something like this going on and it’s definitely not us, it’s not the way we operate our organisation and I’m sorry for any inconvenience it’s causing them.”
