CEOP Spam Scam

If you visit the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, the police agency that focuses on sexual abuse of children online, you will see this message:

We are aware that bogus emails have been sent purporting to be from the CEOP Centre asking the recipient to call a phone number to make a payment or book an appointment. This message is being sent from a bogus account – ceop@gov.uk. We advise any recipients to delete this message and not respond in any way to either the email address quoted or the telephone numbers provided. CEOP has no power to issue fine notices

We recommend you do not use any of the contact information or click on any of the links in the email and instead visit the official site www.ceop.police.uk

Essentially what they are reporting is a very clever scam. Instead of the normal 4-1-9 scam which is based on greed this one involves sending out tens of thousands of e-mails to random e-mail addresses informing them that they have been "caught" viewing pictures of child abuse and offering them the option of paying a fixed penalty fine rather than face prosecution. Most of those who recieve this e-mail will not have viewed such material but a significant minority may feel their guilty secret has been exposed. This group may well respond and pay up. If subsquently they find it is a scam they are hardly likely to report it.