Cash plea on 'mugging' was scam by hackers

Hackers attempted to scam the friends and family of the secretary of a Shropshire football league by sending out messages from her e-mail claiming she had been the victim of a vicious mugging overseas.

The culprits hacked into Trudi Sutton's e-mail over the weekend after conning her with a fake message posing as internet supplier BT. They then sent a message to all her contacts begging for financial assistance.

They pretended Mrs Sutton, who is secretary to the South Shropshire Junior Football league and Onny Juniors, had been smashed over the head with a pistol in Spain before being robbed.

Friends of Mrs Sutton, 39, started bombarding her with calls and e-mails in response to the appeal for money.

One local junior team manager almost transferred hundreds of pounds to the hackers after reading the e-mail.

Mrs Sutton, of Lower Hayton, Ludlow, said the hackers deleted contacts and more than 700 e-mails which she needed to conduct league business.

She said: "I was stewing, I was so angry. I have a BlackBerry phone and you get messages asking you to confirm your name and password to receive e-mails.

"So when I got an e-mail from BT asking me to confirm my details I thought nothing of it. We were at the cinema on Saturday when my husband Mark received an e-mail on his phone from my account."

Mrs Sutton added: "I had calls and e-mails, one man kept calling and e-mailed, the hackers asked him to send 1,000 US dollars – fortunately he didn't."