Email accounts compromised

The email reads “I’m unable to speak over the phone due to serious throat pain caused by laryngitis.  Can I ask a favor of you?”  That email which arrived yesterday purportedly over the name of an Oconee County resident is a scam, according to what we’ve learned here at 101.7/WGOG.  The scammer has used the good name of Bob Winchester, retired executive director of the Joint Regional Service Authority, to try to get an Apple gift card supposedly for a Winchester relative who the scammer wrongly claims has a stage 4 cancer.  Winchester says none of that is true, and he has been in touch with several of his email correspondents to assure them that this is false.  He also has reported the scam to the Oconee Sheriff’s Office and to his carrier, AT & T.