Dad scammed by English philanthropist?

I'm not the one being scammed.
Unfortunately, my dad is, and we're already scrambling to make ends meet in this down economy. I've already tried convincing him that it's a scam, but he keeps writing me off as a kid who doesn't understand "finances". I've tried to get to him through my mom, but my dad controls all the financial things in my family and doesn't talk with anyone about them--that means I can't ask any of my other relatives to talk to him either.

He told my mom and me that he would stop contacting the guy, but it's pretty obvious that he's been lying to us since he's still picking up phone numbers labeled "RESTRICTED" on his cell phone.

My dad's showed me a couple of e-mails from the guy, often expressing his excitement, but other than that I'm sorry that I can't provide much else to you guys. Here's the first e-mail that my dad got:

ATTN:

Late Gianni Agnelli was a very dedicated Christian who loved to give out. His great philanthropy earned him numerous awards during his life time. Late Gianni Agnelli died on the 18th day of January, 2003 at the age of 81 years, and his WILL is now ready for execution. According to him this money is to support your humanitarian activities and to help the poor and the needy in our society.

We want to acknowledge the receipt of your email in this chamber and also want you to know that you have absolute right to reject this WILL as much as you have the right to accept it as well. If you wish to turn it down then let me know so I can send you a WILL rejection form to fill and revert back to this office. I am not going to impose it on you but just doing my job here.

I can imagine that the late Gianni Agnelli must have known that you will put the money to good use for the less privileged of which he was aware that you can achieve, that is why he selected you. Also, understand that I don\'t know you neither have I met you before, but my contacting you is based on the recommendation of late Gianni Agnelli.

Be further informed that these funds will not be released to you without some proper identification. I have never met you before like I said and to be able to carry out our duties effectively as sole executors of the WILL of late Gianni Agnelli, We must be convinced that you are who the testament says you are.

And please re-confirm to us through the above stated fax or via email; your full contact details to include your full name and address telephone and fax number(if any) and if you have moved to a new address then indicate both the new and old one for my verification with what I have in my file. Any difference or discrepancies in the information provided by you will mean that I am contacting the wrong person and I will stop all communication with you out rightly.

Your information would be taken to the probate division of the International Court of Justice for verification. After the confirmation, the probate division would now release your letter of administration for claims to this bequest/funds. This document as well as the Certificate of Deposit issued by the Deposit Bank to Late Gianni Agnelli when the funds were deposited by him will then be released to you, this will give you the legal backing to receiving these funds.

We sincerely hope that the above requirement be sent to us sooner that later for us to proceed with the documentation. And note that we cannot send any document to you until we are fully convinced that we have the true beneficiary. And note that we have a period of (14) working days to conclude this so I can move on to the next beneficiary on the WILL of my late client.

I await your prompt response.

Yours in Service,

Barristers' Chambers:
HOLLIS GREY
Queen Elizabeth Building ,
Temple , London EC4Y 9BS
Tel: +44 701 112 1875
PARTNER MANAGING
HOLLIS GREY& ASSOCIATES

********Confidentiality Notice********

This message is intended for the sole use of the individual and entity to whom it is addressed, and may contain information that is privileged,confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution of this email message, including any attachment, is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please advise the sender by reply email.

This scammer is pretty persistent, often calling a number of times each day and having my dad reply with some code. My dad's particular code is "108" and he always says that at the beginning of the phone call--my guess is that the scammer is making sure that nobody else is snooping on his scam.

Here's a couple of other e-mails I've managed to get, but other than that there's probably around 12 or so e-mails total between the scammer and my dad.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *****DAD*******
Date: Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: 108 { TRANSFER REQUIREMENT } *****DAD*******
To: [email protected]




On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 1:57 PM, *****DAD******* wrote:

Here is my ID Driver license and USA Passport on the Attache files .

*****DAD*******

Address : -----REMOVED------

Phone # +------REMOVED------- Home
+

On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Alliance and Leicester Bank Plc <[email protected]> wrote:



ALLIANCE AND LEICESTER BANK PLC.
FAX: +44 709 284 7448

9TH JANUARY, 2011.

ATTN: *****DAD*******

On behalf of Alliance and Leicester Bank Plc, United Kingdom, I am pleased to inform you that we have been formally notified by the Probate Division of the International Royal Courts of Justice here in England, that according to the last testament of our late customer Late Gianni Agnelli's Will, as secured by his attorneys, Barrister Hollis Grey of Hollis Grey Chambers, you have been approved as the rightful beneficiary to Late Gianni Agnelli's trust account with us totaling US$60,500,000.00 (Sixty Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) noted in our custody on the 13th day of January, 2003 under deposit code WEX1499128-L212.

We received the Funds in our vaults long ago and since has been waiting for instructions of what to do and how to carry on with the transfer of funds. Please, we would want you to note the following below before you can make claim of the funds .

You would need to make:

1.) A copy of the Court Probate Order from the Probate Registry Department of the Royal High Court of Justice, where it states that you are the beneficiary. This is important because we have been notified by the Court that it has been sent to you.

2) A verified Drivers License or an International Passport showing you as *****DAD*******.

Note: The above requested document(s) should be via email attachment or should be faxed to us immediately via (+44) 709 284 7448 or sent through email attachment.

We would like to update you that the depositor was a customer here in this Bank, and there is no way he was involved in any illegal transactions. Please be aware that all that is involved is simply legitimate.

Accept our felicitation and your immediate response.

Best Regards

Mr. Stephan Morley
ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT
**Alliance and Leicester Bank Plc, Registered in United Kingdom
Registered Office : Carlton Park, Narborough Leicester LE19 0AL.
Registered in England.
Regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
24-hour telephone service +44 703 197 7671 (For Emergencies)

NB:
ANY PAYMENT MADE TO ANY INDIVIDUAL OR PERSONS WHO IS NOT PROVIDED FROM THE OFFICIAL EMAIL ADDRESS OF THIS BANK IS NOT RELATED TO US AND YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

Royal High Court
Justice Ministry
Probate Registry Department
Chancery Division, Strand
WC2ALL Central London
United Kingdom.
Fax: +44 709 284 7448

Our Ref: 5464K2/71 Date: 12TH April, 2011.

Application For a Court Probate Order/Bank Certificate of Late Gianni Agnelli Inheritance.

Attn: ****DAD**********

Good day Sir, I have sent you several emails but you do not reply, I have called you so many times, also do not pick my calls, the bank also told us they sent you an email with the account as well, you did not reply them either.

Actually Sir, you should know I Mr. James Peters of the Probate Registry Department for the Royal High Court of Justice England do not have anything to loss or gain in this bequest, this is my job, I make people receive what was given to them.

You may not been blamed for been skeptic because there is allot of scam activities over the internet at the moment, this scammer are using legitimate company names and address in their fraudulent e-mail, This Court has it name and reputation to protect so we are not in any way involve in any of such scam activities, Please be vigilant, as they tarnish the integrity of legitimate marketers of Government and Non Governmental Organization. Presently, severe action have been taken by the UK Government and the Anti-Fraud department to put an end to such scams by embarking on enlightenment program's to help individuals and cooperate bodies in identifying such scam mails and how to report them to the authorities. I give you my words 'there is nothing you have to be afraid of'.

I believe you must have viewed one of this banner and email page on the internet as placed by this court to help enlightenment individual hence your skepticism and that is why we have warned earlier that never should you display your bequest information most especially all document scanned or fax to you pertaining your inheritance to avoid any case of identity theft or a situation of misappropriation of funds. For more news about this scam mails you can log into Google or the yahoo search or better still our law professors Blog.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/trusts ... quest.html
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/b ... dSmith.php
http://gariell.wordpress.com/2008/01/24 ... -419-scam/
http://www.419legal.org/419-scam-letter ... co-za.html
http://www.scamwarning.org/2008/02/01/m ... e-at-once/
http://www.quatloos.com/Posted_Letter.php?ID=16692

Pertaining the will of my Late Client (Gianni Agnelli ) , I would advise you to go back to the will and read again because if you have taken your time to read the section 8 ( iii) you would note this on the will (In the event that *****DAD*******, predeceased me or rejects it, the bequest or property herein devised on my younger brother, Umberto Agnelli). That is why I am trying to make sure that funds are transferred to you before that date, if you have been reading all my mails you would note all this.

At this junction, it has been conclude you do not want this inheritance anymore. You would have to fill and return the COUNTER AFFIDAVIT (WILL REJECTION FORM) so as we can cancel the transfer of this bequest to you and redirect to the brother Umberto Agnelli as stated in the WILL.

In doing this, send us an email with the information on how we are to return back the Probate Registration and Endorsement fee ($1,359) you paid for.

In all, it was really nice knowing you Sir. Bye.

Yours truly,

MR JAMES PETERS,
Probate Registry Department,
Justice Ministry,London
United Kingdom

ALLIANCE AND LEICESTER BANK PLC.
Tel: +44 709 284 7448
Fax: +44 844 774 2991
Email: [email protected]

15TH APRIL, 2011.

ATTN: ******DAD*********

The Western Union and Money Gram has bridge the contract we have with them, in doing this, we have filed a lawsuit against them and our lawyers will be in touch with them soon. But with the information from the Western Union Headquarter, they said they are not aware of any MR *****DAD******* sending payment that was not received by us. We are very sorry for what it must have caused you.

With the discussion with Mr. James Peters, you should be allowed to send payment via bank to bank wire transfer.

In using the bank to bank wire transfer, you are no more required to pay $5,071 but $8,200. Do not forget that anything you are sending is coming back to you. Hence, it will be credited into your account.

Below is our affiliated bank account to make transfer;

Bank Name: Santander UK PLC
Account Officer: Marcus Padginton
IBAN: GB54GB1809012714272879
Swift code: GB18ABY
Bank Code: 09-01-27
Account Number: 14272879
Country: Great Britain
Amount: $8,200

Bank Address:
Po Box 382
21 Prescot Street
Town: London
Postcode: E1 8AD
UK

I know it is not my business, but Mr. James Peters has been so helpful to you, you own him allot. Send us the scanned and attached copy of the transfer slip.

Best Regards

Mr. Stephan Morley
ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT
**Alliance and Leicester Bank Plc, Registered in United Kingdom
Registered Office : Carlton Park, Narborough Leicester LE19 0AL.
Registered in England.
Regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
24-hour telephone service +44 703 197 7671 (For Emergencies)


NB:
ANY PAYMENT MADE TO ANY INDIVIDUAL OR PERSONS WHO IS NOT PROVIDED FROM THE OFFICIAL EMAIL ADDRESS OF THIS BANK IS NOT RELATED TO US AND YOU DO SO AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

Some images that he's provided as well:

Hi SamuraiHitok

As you are aware, this is a scam. It is going to be extremely difficult to convince your father if he has started sending money to these people.

I found the same email here
http://419.bittenus.com/11/4/AustinReimiller.html

Also the address Barristers' Chambers: HOLLIS GREY Queen Elizabeth Building is a well known scammer address

http://email-spam-scams.blogspot.com/20 ... -grey.html

The phone number starting 4470 is a British Re-direct number, it re-routes phone calls to anywhere in the world, it features prominently here

http://www.crime-research.org/news/05.1 ... ents/?p=83

If you can get your father to read here, I know this may be next to impossible, it may help.

Other things to do, if you have the number the scammer is ringing from, your mother may be able to have it blocked on your phone line to prevent the scammer contacting your father.

By the look of the emails you have posted, your father is deeply involved, and I presume sending various sums of money already. That money is lost, gone and cannot be recovered. It would have been sent by Western Union, or Moneygram, and there is no chance of you ever recovering it.

You and your mother need to discuss this, and then try to convince your father it is a scam.

I am sorry this is happening to your family, there are families everywhere that have been driven into poverty by scammers, you need to get this stopped now, before your father runs out of money and then does something that could be illegal to obtain more money to send.

Please keep posting

John Delaney

Hi SamuraiHitok

I see that the "Barrister" is claiming to be in the UK.
Do you have his email address?

You could ask your father to inspect the email headers and analyse where they come from using a tool like http://www.iptrackeronline.com/header.php
I suspect that you will find both the barrister and bank will not be writing from the UK.

The email addresses used so far are available for free.
[email protected] is registered with http://www.free-domains.ce.ms
[email protected] is a free address from http://www.hotmail.com
[email protected] is a scammer's favourite from http://www.mail.com

Real and legitimate companies do not use free addresses. They register their own domain. The real one for A&L is www.alliance-leicester.co.uk and they a part of Santander: www.santander.co.uk

I notice that the fax number for Allience & Leicester,

ALLIANCE AND LEICESTER BANK PLC.
FAX: +44 709 284 7448

Is shared with

Royal High Court
Justice Ministry
Probate Registry Department
Chancery Division, Strand
WC2ALL Central London
United Kingdom.
Fax: +44 709 284 7448

Your dad looks liked he's hooked and you really need to keep the pressure on.
I hope that the pointers we have given so far will help.

I'm sorry to have to say this SamuraiHitok but this is really quite an obvious scam.

Gianni Agnelli was an Italian, and one of the richest people in Italy whose empire was located in Italy, so the only reason that the scammer has moved the setting to the UK is because the scammer can't speak Italian.

Gianni Agnelli had nothing to do with the UK. He didn't live here or hold any money here and the UK courts would not be allowed to handle his estate which was handled by the Italian courts. I do believe that there are legal cases going on at present in the Italian courts, but essentially his estate has been disposed of.

The scammer is an ignorant moron sitting in a West African internet cafe and nothing he says in his mails makes any sense. I spent all my life before I retired working for a major UK bank and this scammer knows nothing about how a UK bank operates or the UK legal system. The way the scammer has contacted your father would be illegal if a real bank or legal organisation did that. A bank or legal representative are not allowed to disclose any information until after the person has been properly identified against original documents. It could never be handled as an internet only transaction and there'd be be legal representatives lying to your country to validate documents. Scanned or photocopy documents are worthless and not acceptable in any court. You can't even get a UK visa against a scanned passport so how does your father expect to inherit millions of dollars against scanned douments ?

Your only hope may be to speak to someone you know your father respects or sees as a figure of authority. Perhaps a bank manager or maybe a local solicitor, businessman or religious figure who you feel comfortable explaining the situation to so that you can ask them to use their powers of persuasion.

Of course, in this situation, matters don't get easier even if your father wakes up to the fact that he's been scammed but at present your priority is to prevent the scam ruining your whole family.