AN ELDERLY Catholic nun appears to be the latest victim of a scam that has seen con men breaking into the e-mail accounts of at least half a dozen people here and trying to fleece their friends out of thousands of dollars.

Sister Maria Ng's contacts received an e-mail from the account of the 71-year-old nun saying she was stranded in Nigeria after losing her passport and money.

The e-mail went on to say that Sister Maria was attending a youth programme in Africa, she was starving after losing her valuables and desperately needed $2,300 to return home.

'There's no such thing,' she told The Straits Times. 'I never left Singapore in October and have never visited Nigeria before.'

While it is not known if anyone had sent in money, the police have advised the public to be wary of such scams.

In the first nine months of this year, the police said they received seven reports of e-mail scams. Last year, there were seven such complaints.

Well-known lawyer Anamah Tan, Singapore Idol finalist Jeassea Thyidor and Straits Times senior writer Ching Cheong were other reported victims of similar scams.

Last month, Sister Maria received an e-mail from someone purporting to be an administrator with Hotmail who wanted to verify her accounts.

She gave them her passwords, but soon discovered her accounts had been hacked into and her friends had received the fake pleas for help.

'I was so upset by the whole incident. How can people be so cruel to do such things to innocent people?' asked Sister Maria, who is from the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary order.

The police said the modus operandi of most e-mail hackers is similar to that experienced by Sister Maria.

Generally, these con men fish for personal information by posing as e-mail administrators.

Victims are asked to provide their e-mail user names and passwords to verify that their accounts are still active or to re-confirm their passwords.

With such details in hand, the con men use the victim's e-mail account to send out pleas for monetary help to their contacts.

Housewife Monica Singam, 39, was at the receiving end of one such e-mail recently.

The message claimed her aunt had been robbed in London and needed ?1,200 (S$2,800) to pay her hotel room charges.

Mrs Singam added: 'The e-mail sounded so real that I panicked. But my husband told me it's likely to be a scam.'

A day after receiving the e-mail, Mrs Singam received another e-mail from her aunt exposing the hoax.

The police have advised the public to call the person allegedly in trouble if they receive e-mail messages asking for aid.

'In general, users are advised to be wary about sending out personal information online,' said a police spokesman.

This story was first published in The Straits Times on 3 November 2008.