Everyday, our email accounts are bombarded with scam emails. Thankfully most email providers have filters to detect scam emails and direct them into our junk mail files. However, the more advanced scam emails can evade detection and may lure us into the scams.

One recent scam shows just how much effort scammers put into their scams, tailoring the fiction story-lines in order to target different groups of people.

The sender of the emails claims to be a Mrs Rose Torres whose late husband left her a small fortune. She is terminally ill. With no family to pass her fortune onto, she wishes to donate it to charity.

We wait for variations of this email story to appear, so keep your eyes peeled!

Scammers try to trick us into providing our bank details. Scammers claim that they need the details to transfer money into our accounts. In fact, scammers use our bank details to pay for their own shopping and withdraw money from our bank accounts.

If an email offer sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. We advise that you never provide personal information to anyone unless you know exactly who they are. The Department of Commerce takes scams seriously. You can search the list of all known email scams at www.scamnet.gov.wa.au. If you receive an email that you believe is a scam, we suggest that you forward it on to wascamnet@commerce.wa.gov.au for further investigation.