To the Editor:

I have been scammed and I want to let everyone know that people are scamming others by getting into their computers and using your contact names and then sending emails out saying you are in trouble and send money.

I am home, not in trouble. Do not need any money to pay a hotel bill. Pease do not send any money to anyone who asks for it and it seems that the email appears to be from me.

I want to thank everyone who thought about helping me had I been in trouble. It’s nice to know there are friends out there.

I had traveled overseas with a friend and while away, my email account was hacked and someone sent out emails to everyone on my contact list that I was in London and had been mugged and had lost everything, including money, credit cards and that I couldn’t pay my hotel bill. All I had left, the scammer said using my name, was my passport.

I did travel to Europe, but I never went to London.

Liz Eilf

Lehigh Acres

Eilf is describing a problem that is affecting many people in this area at the present time. We received email this week from someone selling Viagra, but it didn’t come from the person whose name appeared on the email, someone we knew and whose contact email list carries our name.

When we contacted that person, she admitted someone had broken into her email account and had sent these ads out to everyone on her mailing list.

The first thing you should do, all of you who have email accounts, is to change your passwords immediately, like today, so you won’t be scammed.

When you select a new password, don’t use common names. Make up words with letters and numbers. It’s very unlikely someone can hack into a password, let’s say, like “tuwod659xt.”

Hackers today use computer programs to search for hundreds of thousands of words that can be passwords and then they try thousands of accounts.

Another thing, when someone sends you something off the Internet and it shows all the people that the email was sent to and all the people who sent the email to the person who forwarded the email, delete all those email addresses if you plan to forward that piece of email.

And never open an email if it looks suspicious or click on a link in an email if it appears suspicious, even if it appears to be from someone you may know. It is important to change your password often if you are banking online and you should come up with a combination of letters and numbers that nobody can guess and no computer can come up with. Since the economy had been in a downspin, spammers are working the Internet to steal your money and your identity. Ed.