New email scam that targets overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), their families and their friends, has been reported circulating over the Internet.

A report in The Peninsula, a Qatar-based news website, said that the scam is collecting the email addresses and passwords of their potential victims through a social networking site that will ask you to enter your email and password and the hacker will start chatting with you pretending to be one of your friends in the list.

According to the story told by an OFW based in Malaysia, who is fortunate as he was not victimized by the con-artist, he was chatting with a friend who’s based in the Philippines when his friend asked him to click a link that leads him to a social networking site. The new site asked for his email and password. Since he thought that he is talking to his friend, he followed his friend’s request.

Then after that, he received a text message from his supposed friend asking him where he could purchase prepaid roaming phone cards, which cost a hefty Php50,000 or approximately QR4,000. The friend is asking him to buy those cards which he can sell to other OFWs in Malaysia and earn some profit.

The OFW is quick to realize that it is not his friend in the Philippines he is dealing with so he immediately canceled his purchase.

He found out that his email account was once hacked and the hacker is trying to obtain money from him.

An IT expert was consulted and found out that the hacker got an idea from a social networking site and created something that is similar with this site and uses it in collecting the emails and passwords of OFWs using the Internet in communicating with their relatives and friends.

There are other similar cases that have been reported and have victimized several Internet users who were asked to enter their email addresses and passwords.

Internet users are advised not to enter email passwords on any site and it’s better to use two passwords, for email purposes and the other one is for general purposes, like in joining social networking sites. And if it involves money matters, call the person you are dealing with before sending the money.