Internet scammers are using the Asian tsunami disaster to infiltrate Oregon bank and credit accounts, justice officials said.

A twist on the well-known Nigerian money transfer scheme has shown up on e-mail accounts around the state within the past week, said Jan Margosian, spokeswoman for the Oregon Attorney General’s Office. The e-mail messages come under the guise of a foreign Red Cross organization or a fraudulent group calling itself something akin to Northwest Medical Teams, a legitimate organization based in Portland, she said.

"As soon as we saw the tsunami, we knew that we would see scammers right in the middle of it," Margosian said, adding that similar ploys surfaced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

At least a dozen Oregonians reported sending their credit card numbers to fraudulent overseas groups after they received e-mail solicitations, Margosian said. However, other instances likely haven’t been reported because people don’t realize they’ve put themselves at risk for identity theft, she added.

Consumers immediately should be wary if they receive any unsolicited plea to give to charity, Margosian said. Asking donors to wire money through Western Union is a tell-tale sign that a scam is afoot, she said. Nigerian swindlers requesting aid for civil war refugees in West Africa have favored money wiring for years because the transfer is untraceable, Margosian said.

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"Once you have wired money, it’s gone," she said.

Locally, police said charity organizations are suspect when they don’t provide mailing addresses or they contain hyphens or underscore characters in e-mail addresses or Web sites. Additionally, Internet scams always contain an element of urgency, said Medford police Lt. Mike Moran.

The Attorney General’s Office warns consumers against giving out financial or identifying information to anyone who contacted them unsolicited. Justice officials also recommend giving funds to organizations with a long track record for helping overseas, such as the American Red Cross or UNICEF.

Some legitimate fund-raising groups can mean well but don’t have the infrastructure to move large quantities of goods to disaster-stricken areas, Margosian said.

Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail slemon@mailtribune.com.