Offwego:Where is Ponheary now?
 

I just received a very disturbing email from Ponheary. Has anyone else received this? Is this for real or has someone compromised Pon's email?

Here is a part of the email I received

"How's work on your end? This has had to come in a hurry and it has left me in a devastating state. These people won't even allow people write in native dialects as they have configured the systems here to display messages in English only. I am in some terrible situation and I'm really going to need your urgent help. Yesterday, unannounced, I came to visit a new researchers' complex in London, Imperial College London, Gallery Section, (South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ), England. Well we actually got robbed in the Hotel I booked in and they made away with my wallet (which included my cash, diaries and credit cards). My cellphones were not brought along since I did not get to roam them before coming over. The phone cables have been burnt including internet connection cables and the Hotel's database has been compromised as well. So all I can do now is pay cash and get out of here quickly. I do not want to make a scene of this which is why I did not call the office or my house, this is embarassing enough. Please I want you to lend me a sum of £1,330, just to clear my Hotel bills and get the next plane home. The Consulate only cleared me of my travelling documents and ticketing since I came in as a tourist and not on official purpose. I shall have your money reimbursed immediately on my return. I'll be waiting on you at the Hotel lobby for your mail.

Looking forward to positive response.

BRegards,
Pon."

Is this is for real? Sounds too fishy to me but I am hoping its not for real.

I hope no one is using Ponheary's name as a scam but it may be so. Beware

Hope all is ok Lori

Aloha!

Very strange. I hope you get a reply from Lori.
j

A friend (who toured with Ponheary last summer) just received the same email. It is reminiscent of the Nigerian bank account scams. Looks as if someone has hacked into her email, since it is unlikely she is in a London hotel with burned phone cables.

cc,

Yea I noticed the burnt cable part. I just emailed Lori about this. The bad thing is that it is the exact same address she has always used, that's what got me.

Glad you emailed Lori she will hopefully be the best bet at sorting this out. The more I read the message the more wierd it is. Since when is Ponheary worried about communicating in English & "the hotel data base has been compromised"???? Very strange

Very scary to have someone hack into your email.

I received it also. Sounds like a scam but I also e-mailed Lori. Haven't heard anything yet.

Yep, I got it too and emailed Lori. Poor girl is going to be inundated. ;-)
I'm glad we all saw it for the scam it obviously is.
I feel bad for Ponheary because knowing her, I am sure she will be mortified and will probably feel she needs to change her email address.

Good morning everyone.

Well someone has obviously hijacked her email and yes, she's mortified.

Not sure what to do at this point; changing her email address would be a calamity indeed.....will just wait and see if it happens again.

Meanwhile, we'll be spending the morning answering all these emails! :)

BTW it would be pretty hard for a Cambodian national to "arrive in London unannounced! Ha.

Lori so glad you are with Ponheary to help her with this she will be so upset. Take care & giver her our love.
J

I got one too. Didn't sound remotely like the sort of thing Ponheary would send out.

Why would it be so embarrassing to contact your own house etc but instead contact everyone in your email address book? Only thing is its not all that clear how they intend to get the money anyone sends. They must have complete access to the email account at the moment.

Hope it can get sorted out for Ponheary quickly and at least she can feel safe in knowing that anyone knowing her would be very wary of this - just not something she would do - she might ask help for someone else but I doubt ever for herself!

Well now we've got to the bottom of what happened. Yesterday she replied to an email from someone posing as Yahoo, asking for her password and SHE GAVE IT TO THEM.

Bless her, she didn't know better. She sure does now. This person has changed her password now.

Of course this means she can't get into her contacts, her bookings, anything. It's a true nightmare.

Anyone who is in the process of trying to book with her RIGHT NOW, best to email me

girlseesworldATyahooDOTcom

I've contacted Yahoo and meanwhile I'm setting her up a new address, trying to rebuild her contact list from the ones I also have....

She's downstairs right now crying her eyes out, just sick with herself.

I guess once yahoo emails me to tell me there's nothing they can do, I will post a new topic and state her new email address.

Oh my goodness it is a hard lesson to learn. Maybe there is an email wizz here who may have a clue of she can somehow get her email addresses from somewhere???? I don't suppose she has any print outs of emails from people booking with her that have their email on the print out? I was going to send her an email to say Hi & hope she is OK but guess I better wait until she has a new address. You are there at the right time Lori I am sure she is counting her blessings that you are helping. I read the email to my husband Bob & he said there is no way that sounds like Ponheary. Good Luck.

Well the good news is that I have the email addresses of all her contacts that had anything to do with the Foundation, so that's a lot of them.

She's very concerned about the people who were in the middle of booking with her, and of course worried about missives such as these going out to her address book and them thinking it's HER.

Still waiting to hear from yahoo. I picked a bad time to quit drinking. :)

What a nightmare! I'm so glad you are there, Lori!

Oh, that's just horrible. She's had that email address forever!
I do hope at the very least you can get Yahoo to cancel the account so they can't keep using it.
Please tell her we're all thinking of her and do let us know what her new email address is.

I'm wondering if anyone replied to this email and if so, what the response was from the a$$ who stole her address. Also wondering if it's possible for Yahoo to track them down using the IP address they are sending the emails from? Hmmmm...

I'm glad to see we fodorites and fans of Ponheary are a savvy lot.

If it's any consolation at all please let Ponheary know that of the 40 new e-mails I received today that "hers" was the first I opened.

Yes, I also recognized it as a scam right off the bat.

But if she indeed needed help I would be happy to help her, as I know many of us would.

Sadly she fell victim to a creepy internet scammer and feels aweful about it. But I hope that at the same time she realizes that she is very well loved and respected.

She has a great group of concerned friends and clients past, present and future who would gladly lend her support if she needed it.

Hang in there Ponheary, I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. But now you have another lesson to teach others and your sad experience can help them to not fall victim to such a lousy trick.

I decided to send a reply...

"Whoever you are you have victimized one of the most honest, decent, hard working and caring people I have ever met.

I hope your entire body erupts into oozing sores and that blister and burn from now to the end of eternity.

Even that would not be fair punishment for this stunt of yours, but it would certainly make Pon heary's friends feel better."

cjbryant-Fabulous response!

I got an email this morning from someone who is scheduled to tour with her in a few weeks and was concered because he got one of those emails too. Lori, I passed along your email address.

Thanks everyone for helping on this.I will post a new thread with her new contact information for anyone trying to find her. Thankfully most of her referrals come from here and TA, so maybe those who "drop through the cracks" can be found again.

I showed Ponheary this thread (she never reads Fodors) and she CRIED saying to me "I don't understand how they can be so KIND". Then she had to go upstairs and lay down.

She is so upset and angry with herself.

I am also upset and angry, but with Yahoo for their failure to respond. Waiting about 6 hours between their emails; really frustrating.

I replied to the "phisher" and said "Oh Ponheary I'm so sorry to hear of your misfortune! How can I help?" In 2 minutes, I got exact account information of how to wire the money via western union. I've sent all this to Yahoo, but wonder if anything will come of it.

Some lessons come hard.

Hugs from New York all the way to Siem Reap!

Hang in there Ponheary,

Lorna

Lori, please let us know yahoo's response.

We received the scam message also - our thoughts are with her and I am sure we will all be able to locate her once this is straightened out.

Glad to know this has a mostly happy ending.

You're precious, Lori, as is Ponheary.

Let us know if we can help in any way.

Hi Lori and everyone.
Wow! Very upsetting for her.

Please let Ponheary know that we are booked with her Jan 29-31 (and have communicated with her often via email) and DID NOT receive this disturbing email so it didn't go out to everyone.

I'll read the board for her new address and email her when I get it to confirm.

Please let Ponheary know that we have every confidence in her and it could have happened to anyone!

shame we dont know some one who could spam the spammer!!

we could send him a virus >:-)

not that I would ever do anything like that

Hi Lori,

Back in January we booked with Ponheary for November 27, 28 and 29 and we did not get the scam email either.

We will reconfirm when the new email is up. Thanks to hawaiiantraveler for bringing this up. At least it got out in the open so it can be fixed as quickly as possible. I was going to email Ponheary soon to reconfirm our dates and I would have been very upset to get some weirdo spammer asking for money on the other end.

Hi Lori,

I sent you a separate e-mail. I have not been scammed either, though I was on Ponheary's list.

It is scary and you feel violated, but please tell her not to be upset.

Anyone with half a brain will know that she is not in London.

It's good that everyone is contacting her at her new address to confirm and re-supply their email address. She's slowing reconnecting with everyone in her planner and starting to calm down.

Again, the address is [email protected]

As an aside, a valuable lesson for me was to go to my contacts and print the dang thing out. I can't believe I've never done that, being a slave to backups like I am....

No news from Yahoo. They keep sending her the same dumb form letter asking her to "change her password" Feh!

Call Yahoo. They must have a method to deal with this.

I don't know if this will help or not but you could try and file a complaint at (Internet Crime Complaint Center):

http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Good luck.

One more thing to worry about; if she has accounts set up on other internet sites (such as fodors) linked to that email account she should change all those passwords as well. The person who got into the email account could log on to one of those sites, request a forgotten password and it will then be sent to the email address that has been compromised.

Also, I am not familiar with her services but if it involves people emailing credit card info those numbers are compromised as well.

Hope you get it all sorted out.

Good point about other security risks.

Thankfully, she doesn't do anything on a computer except check her email. She's never been on Fodors, for instance, and she deals strictly in cash.

Andy, we're going to try to get a live person on the phone this evening. For obvious security purposes, they can only talk to her, so I'm going to go with her to the internet cafe tonight and coach her; see if we can talk to a human being.

Lori-Yahoo must have a tech support service. Often, it's a call center in India. They will have some protocol on how to handle a hijacked account. You may have to call several people to get to someone who can actually help.

As I understand it, you are interested in the informatio in Ponheary's account, e.g., contacts, etc.. You might tell the Yahoo person exactly the information you are seeking

Lori if you actually have that western union # they wanted money sending to it may be worth contacting western union & letting them know that this account was set up by a scammer.
J

Just read this thread. I am booked with Dara--through Ponheary for late October. I will email her at the new address to make sure she has me in her contact list.

I did not get the scamming email...but glad that I read this interesting bit of information. Sorry it happened to such a good person.

hi all,

I had been in touch with Ponheary before her email was hacked.

Since then I have emailed her at the new address given here
[email protected]
and she has responded without problem early this morning.

I have not received any scam letters.

I hope this information helps.

calligraphy

What a lot of work for you, Lori, and for Ponheary! As you know, we too received that fraud email. Sorry for all the aggravation and upset this is causing, as I've written in a separate email to you guys. I truly hope that you all can get to the bottom of this and punish the person who's compromised Ponheary's email! It really goes to show that we all must be on guard to such scam artists out there.

Please know that our hearts and thoughts are with you and Ponheary these days...good luck getting through to Yahoo too.

Terry and family

Oh no! What a nightmare.

I hope that everything has or will be resolved.

Liz