Palm Desert senior says email phishing scam faked his death, hacked contacts

PALM DESERT, Calif. (KESQ) - An 80-year-old Palm Desert resident wants to warn others about an email scam sent to his family and friends claiming he died.

John Fanning says the phishing scam sent an email to all his contacts in the form of a funeral invitation, but when users clicked a link to register for a 'celebration of life,' it compromised their computer.

"I had a neighbor come to the door in the afternoon and well, I opened the door and he was quite surprised. He says, oh ho, John, he was going to pay condolences to my wife with my passing," Fanning said.

Fanning says he was first victimized by the scam when he received an email from a friend in Los Angeles claiming her father died. He believes when he clicked the link, the scam stole his information and enacted a similar scheme on him.

"We received an email from a friend, and the celebration of life was the lead in. Knowing that she had an older father that we know in his late 90s, I thought maybe he had passed away. You had to click on a green tab, and then there was another little block where you would check it to validate that you're not a robot. I guess that caused this scam or whatever with their program to lock in to my email and get all of my emails," he said.

Now, Fanning wants to warn others after it installed a virus on his computer, collected his contacts and he worries, may have compromised sensitive information.

Matt Disher at Southwest networks in Palm Desert says the 'supply chain' scam is common.

"One thing to be careful of when attacks like this happen is it may not just be his email that they got into. He could have got under the his files and pictures and bank accounts and everything else once they got access to that computer," Disher said.

He says the scam can act as a trojan horse to access others information through you.

"A lot of people always say, 'I'm not important. Nobody would want my data.' You could be right, but they might want somebody's data that you know or that you know of someone that knows them," he said.

Disher also says these scams are only getting more advanced due to artificial intelligence.

As for Fanning, he says he's consulted tech experts to clear his devices of any malware.

If you're interested in learning more about Southwest Networks, visit: https://www.southwest-networks.com/.