Here http://www.iowacourts.gov/About_the_Courts/Supreme_Court/Supreme_Court_Opinions/Recent_Opinions/20131206/13-0780.pdf is proof positive that you don’t have to be all that smart to be a lawyer. The short story is that a fairly experienced practitioner fell head first into the Nigerian Inheritance scam. Worse than that he talked other clients into advancing money to finance the expenses of getting the supposed money out of Nigeria – this is what caught the lawyer discipline people’s attention. If nothing else it is a pretty extensive explanation of just how the con game works.
The most confusing part of that document is the repeated mention of a “Putz,” which does *not *refer to the lawyer.
Schools should not graduate middle schoolers who can’t spot a Nigerian scam.
It’s only a scam if he doesn’t get the money. I say let’s give him a few more e-mail attempts before we make a determination.
Could be worse - the fool could still be licensed to practise law. :smack:
I recall hearing on the radio that Law offices are the new top target for these scams. They actually work better there, because, unlike your average Joe with an e-mail address, law firms regularly handle transfers of assets, and accepting certified checks so getting such a request doesn’t set off the same alarm bells that it does for most of the public.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Classic.
It’s a Big Deal for firms that do contingency work, particularly anything involving debt collection. This is particularly so because any discrepancy in the firm’s client trust account generally means an automatic bar sanction (the bank automatically reports any bounced trust account check or account overdraft to the state bar.)
I wonder if the “I have heard of your (excellent qualities)” line suckers in attorneys.
It is amazing that people fall for this-the fractured english, the goofy stories…and the fact that it can all be debunked with a simple phone call.
I’m glad that this idiot cannot practice law. He’s much too stupid to be trusted with anything.
His name isn’t Crandall Spondular by any chance, is it?
Proof that some people have way too much money and far too few brains.
On page nine there’s a listing of other cases in which lawyers have fallen for Nigerian scams!
What a bunch of maroons. Serves them all right.
How does the Nigerian scam fool anybody any more? Hasn’t everybody heard of it by now?
I see a lot of scam attempts targeting law offices. The most common one is a foreign client contacts the lawyer by email, and prefers that mode of communication “because of the time difference”. There are two variants…in one, there’s a claim of unpaid alimony/child support/property settlement, in the other it’s a breach of contract between merchants. The scammers provide bogus documents to support the claim, the lawyer sends a demand letter to the “defendants” (who are in on the scam), the Defendants offer to pay up promptly to avoid litigation, and provide a bogus form of payment…cashiers check, money order, etc. Such settlements are typically deposited into the lawyer’s trust account, and the lawyer deducts his fee prior to sending the balance to the client.
Of course, since the payment instrument is fake, the scammers disappear with whatever funds the lawyer sent them…and when the instrument bounces, the lawyer is well and truly screwed.
I get several of these things every week, as do most of the lawyers I know. In my state, the Bar maintains a lawyer directory with email addresses for most law firms so it’s easy for the scammers to harvest potential targets. I don’t know of anyone that actually fell for this one, but the Bar did put out a warning about it earlier this year.
Aren’t most law firms still pretty luddite? I’ve heard lots of stories about computer illiterate lawyers, insistence on paper only offices, stuff like that.
Not really, especially not solo or small firm lawyers. Lots of courts are going to electronic filing now–in my jurisdicition, all federal courts, including bankruptcy, have mandatory electronic filing. Our state supreme court and court of appeals just started it, and a handful of trial courts are doing it now, too.
I dunno about Big Law…that’s a very different world from the one I practice in. They tend to get paid hourly rates by insurance companies and/or corporate clients, so efficiency isn’t really in their best interests.
At my end of the spectrum, anything that saves time also saves money…for me and my clients. I prefer to communicate and exchange documents online, because it is so much easier. Cheaper too…I save copying costs, postage, time, etc.
A question as to how a lawyer could be sucked into this.
Shouldn’t bells have gone off in the lawyer’s mind? Or is it standard for one to pay taxes on inheritence before is has been received?
If I die and have a will leaving 10,000 bucks to my nephew, does my nephew have to cough up the tax before he gets the check from my estate?
There’s a proverb, “No matter what the news is, two percent don’t get the word.”