The Royal Marsden has been made aware of fraudsters using its name in an email scam. Anyone receiving an email from “David Mills” claiming that he is a Doctor at The Royal Marsden should be suspicious.
If you do receive such an email, please alert us by sending a copy of the email to
patientcentre@rmh.nhs.uk. You should also inform your email provider. Do not reply with the personal details which the email asks for.
How the scam works
Even though the email address would normally indicate that the email has originated from The Royal Marsden, this is not the case. A technique known as email spoofing allows people to make an email appear that it has come from a trusted source.
This following is taken from the
Wikipedia article on email spoofing:
E-mail spoofing is a term used to describe (usually fraudulent) e-mail activity in which the sender address and other parts of the e-mail header are altered to appear as though the e-mail originated from a different source. E-mail spoofing is a technique commonly used for spam e-mail and phishing to hide the origin of an e-mail message. By changing certain properties of the e-mail, such as the From, Return-Path and Reply-To fields (which can be found in the message header), ill-intentioned users can make the e-mail appear to be from someone other than the actual sender. The result is that, although the e-mail appears to come from the address indicated in the From field (found in the e-mail headers), it actually comes from another source.
Contents of the email
The email looks like it has been sent from “David Mills” and has the following contents:
From doctor David Mills
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Downs Road
Sutton
Surrey
UK
I am a medical doctor from the well known hospital in London the Royal Marsden NHS Trust, specialist t in cancer treatment during my time as a medical Doctor I have seen patient come and go after begin treated for various diseases and are happy to return to their respected family well and happy ,I have worked here for the past 12 years, and currently have a patient from Dubai royal family Mr. Sheik Zayed jr who is suffering from prostate cancer and has been with us for the past 9 months and he is on life support machine ever since, and currently have few months to live probably weeks ,and since he has been here his bill has been paid via bank transfers neither his family nor friends have checked on his account payments and his well begin.
Futher more through my investigation I have come to realize that there is a lot of family turmoil and No one is interested on the outcome of his health because of family fraud and he currently has a united kingdom account with a total sum of Ј14miillonpounds ,with no next of kin attached to this large sum of money. And this money is just setting here attached to no one .and there is No improvement on his health, Because of my position in the NHS I cannot do this myself ,
So I am soliciting your assistance to act as the next of kin to these funds, without alarming anyone just between you and myself? I got prove of him in the hospital here in the UK, so be rest assured this not scam or game but a real plea for your assistance
As you are aware of the code and conduct of my job I am not allowed to disclose this information based on strictly confidential ethics so I beg you to keep this information to yourself alone, and I am quite aware of the weight of my request on you , but be rest assured of my willingness to asset you were possible, to arrive at our set objectives to get hands on this money that will either go back to the bank or to the government.
Please contact me if you are interested please via email
Yours sincerely
David mills
Alerting the public
The Royal Marsden is in no way connected with the fraudsters sending these emails. They are using our name, not our actual IT systems. They may not even be based in the UK.
We are grateful to the members of the public who alerted us to this scam. We hope that by publicising this deceit, fewer people will fall prey to the fraudsters.