No, Times-Journal Publisher Jim Poole is not stranded in the Philippines.
And while he could use $2,200, it's not an emergency and he doesn't need the money right away.
The Philippines and $2,200 formed a hacker's basic message after he broke into the Times-Journal's news email Monday morning shortly after 8am.
Similar to other scams, the email said Mr. Poole was sightseeing in the Philippines, lost his wallet and needed $2,200 to get back to the states.
The phony email went to about 1,000 contacts in the news' email address book.
"Don't reply. Don't send money," Mr. Poole said. "I'm safe and sound in Cobleskill."
As long as nobody replied and sent money, the scam was harmless enough.
However, the hacker also erased two weeks of news emails, including some items that were to go into the T-J this week. Editor Patsy Nicosia fortunately had printed most of what the paper needed before the hacker struck.
But even worse, the hacker erased the news contacts that had about 1,000 email addresses in it. Besides losing the contacts, this meant the T-J couldn't email scam recipients to warn them.
"We struggled through this week without all the emails we needed," Mr. Poole said. "But there was no way to reach our contacts.
"And it will take awhile to rebuild our address book. If anyone has suggestions, I'm open to them."
As a safety measure, the T-J changed its internal password. The news address is tjournalnews@yahoo.com.