The Chilmark Police Department warned Islanders to be on the lookout for e-mail scams, after several Chilmarkers received e-mails purportedly from someone in their contacts, requesting they wire money to England to assist stranded friends or family members traveling abroad.

“It’s a pretty basic scam,” said officer Sean Slavin yesterday. In these cases, the sender was posing as a friend or family member in need of money to travel back to the States. So far, no recipients have reported sending any money.

Officer Slavin said that while several Vineyarders have been targeted, the scam is unlikely to have local origins. “It’s not like someone from Vineyard Haven is going around stealing Yahoo addresses from people in Chilmark and trying to scam money. It’s all overseas,” he said.

Still, he said, it’s important to be vigilant while using public computers. People should always remember to log out of their e-mail accounts when they are through, so that no one can access their personal account information.