I have received a couple of emails from a “barister” in Great Brittain saying that a family with the same last name as mine was wiped out in a car wreck and left a 15 million dollar estate. They want me to work with them to claim this estate. The lawyer said he will take 50% and I will have the rest. He wants me to email my name and address so he can start the ball rolling. I don’t have a common last name. Of course I learned that you don’t get somthing for noting and I would never give him my soc. or any other personal info.
Has anyone heard of this before? Is it a confirmed scam? Should I take it one step further and contact him? Any comments would be appreciated.
It is DEFINITELY a scam. I’ve gotten several similar letters, plus letters from someone claiming to be a person seeking asylum from rebels who need money moved to offshore accounts, from Nigeria, France, Spain and England. Anyway, it’s definitely in your best interest not to reply to messages like these in any way, shape or form. There used to be a place on the secret services Web site to report these e-mails & letters, but I can’t find it anymore. So just delete it and any others you might get.
I got a similar letter, from Nigeria (of course), claiming that a relative with the same last name had been killed in a car crash and left me a fortune. This gave me a laugh, because my last name is extremely rare (three other families in the entire U.S.).
Just a new variant on the venerable Nigerian scam, like the relatively new “you won a lottery” (you never entered) scam.
[QUOTE=pepper4]
The lawyer said he will take 50% and I will have the rest. /QUOTE]
Downright generous of him, wasn’t it.
Sound too good to be true. Why of course it does, a nice fat windfall and little or no trouble on your part, except to furnish your bank account numbers and a few minor details that would cost you dearly.
If it sounds too good to be true it probably is and should be avoided like the pague!
A real barrister would have sent a letter by certified mail on shiny lawfirm letterhead. I’d guess the last name was mined off an email you sent somewhere that included your name in the header.
Well, from my limitd experience with Commonwealth legal systems (when I hear "barrister’ I immediately assume a Commonwealth nation or Great Britain or former British possessions), I’d be extrememly surprised if a barrister would legitimately be handling such a case. barristers plead cases, especially before a superior court. Solicitors handle most legal matters, including probate.
Frankly, even if there were legitimate underlying death and familial relationship, the involvement of a barrrister would suggest an imminent or in-progress lawsuit, and at least one of the the parties involved would probably have a better claim than you, a foreigner who wasn’t even aware of the relationship. Even in that case, I’d expect a solicitor to make the initial contact, not a barrister.
50% is pretty extortionate, IMHO, regardless. Recall that they can’t get one cent without your consent, and you could hire your own legal representation, on far better terms, if a cursory investigation turned up a legitimate claim. Asking for 50% up front is either a bargaining ploy, or an indication that they consider the claim to be speculative at best – in which case, I wouldn’t expect them to do much beyond filing your [weak] claim and hope for a default judgement.
Even in the most optimistic and generous case, I wouldn’t deal with this “barister”.
So what would happen If someone started a virgin account with the minimum possible amount [I think for the Navy Fed Credit Union it is like $5US…] and used that information? What could they possibly manage to do with $5US?
The subject is sort of fascinating…my roommate sent me a link a while back to some website where someone had played with a scammer about being a head on life support that was absolutely hysterical=)
Many are really funny. Those tend to be “scam victims” who knew the score and were trying to see how stupid some of the scammers were. One of them got their scammer to email pictures of himself to the victim dressed up in women’s undies. Another one, where the scam was something to do with a dodgy gold mine, actually managed to persuade the scammer to post a very small sample of real gold to a postbox as “proof” that the thing was genuine.
Some of the stories relate to more gullible people and are very sad.