I got this tonight. What is this? Why would a “London.Global.Database.Center” have my financial data and email address. How did they get my full IRL name? Why do they have Excite ads on their email footers? Why tell me the banks are “giants”. Isn’t "intestate"one word?
They don’t seem to be promising anything like Nigerian spam does even though it has a vague Nigeriany syntactical feel. I have no relatives (I’m aware of) that would meet their criteria. This smells like a scam, but I can’t figure out what the angle is.
It smells awfully scammy to me, too. If I got one of those, I’d delete it.
If you have a relationship with any firm mentioned, call them to find out if it is a real inquiry. Don’t use any number in the e-mail, find the real phone number.
IMHO it is a slow start scam- hook you in and then ask for money.
Reasons for my doubts- no web presence for Ethan and Martini
No Phone number available with BT Enquiries
Poor English- in testate, formentioned- trying to sound official but failing
Poor layout
Poor punctuation- no spces after periods.
Odd use of English- Who’
GBR rather than UK
Raynam Road is IIRC (I used to live in Hammersmith) is a terraced residential street without any businesses.
The Shepherd’s Bush area of London is an area of regular immigration. When I lived there, many of the residents were Caribbean in origin- it would not surprise me now to find that there were many Nigerians living in that area!
So I vote scam.
And finally on googling London Global Database Center (and after all my above hard work :smack: I find:
I second the idea of doing seperate research to see if the firms involved are legitimate. I can’t imagine that someone woud try to find a next of kin just by emailing everyone with the same surname. Even if they did a search like that, you think they would try to contact you by phone or at least snail mail.
I will never understand why anyone would ever think something like this is legitimate. If the proposition was legitimate, initial contact on an “important matter” would probably not be made by email . Banks, Investment firms, Accountants, Attorneys just don’t usually do business that way.
Of course it’s a scam, as several posters have made clear.
It’s just like a trad Nigerian scam except it’s one stage further back. Once you actually reply, THEN it runs along the usual tracks of promising a big mega squillions payoff, but (ta-dah!) we need your bank details or an up-front fees payment or both.
By the way, re diggleblop’s suggestion of playing along for laffs… yes, there are people who have done this successfully and you can see the results on various sites and forums. But be warned: it can be a dangerous game. You had better be certain that you can make yourself 100% untraceable. Just occasionally, this game gets ugly and there aren’t many ‘laffs’ in it. All in all, just ignore it. There are easier and safer ways to have fun.
SCAM - I’ve received several (more than three) emails in the last two days that have that myway dot com in their header. I have replied to them with exceptionally poor grammar and given fake addresses and such. None have asked for banking info, as yet, it was only name, address, AGE(?) and marital status (another ?).
It’s a scam-baiting site. Basically a board for people who string along 419 scammers and fuck with them for fun. Here is a very similar site which will give you the general idea.
