New Scam ?

Received this e-mail today, Is this a new scam
I am sure it is

Francisco Garnelo
Clifford Chance LLP ( ID 447778)
10 Upper Bank Street
England.
E14 5JJ




We wish to notify you again that you we have unanimously agreed through a resolution reached in a meeting of our board of trustees to nominate you as a beneficiary to the total sum of (Eleven Million, Five Hundred and Thirty Thousand United State Dollar) presently under the custody of a Bank here in UK. The deceased (Name now withheld since this is our second letter to you). We contacted you basically because you bear the same surname identity of the deceased which obviously we know you dont have or rather have never had any relationship whatsoever with at any given time during his life time.

As lawyers to the deceased, we cannot lay claim to this funds which is about to be forfeited to the British Crown because the bank account has been dormant for the proceeding Six years without claim and according to the British law, the money will revert to the treasury of the British government if nobody applies to claim the funds within the next six months with a satisfactory proof of claim. Being lawyers to the deceased for the past fifteen years before his demise, we have all it takes to satisfactorily present you as the next of kin to the deceased for this claim.We shall be happy to prepare wills, set-up and administer trusts, carry out the administration of estates, prepare and administer powers of attorney. All the papers will be processed in your acceptance.Our legal services aim to provide our private clients with a complete service on this matter to ensure a swift and successful process which will be carried out within the limit of the law.

To avoid this money being sent to the British Treasury as unclaimed funds, it is on this note I sorted your surname in your high commission here, made some preliminary inquiries about your person without disclosing my real intention anyway, and hereby crave your indulgence since you bear the same surnames as we can therefore present you as the beneficiary to the inheritance, since there is no written will.

At your acceptance of this deal, we request that you kindly send to us your current telephone and fax numbers, your official and residential address and a valid form of identification of yourself, either your drivers license or first three pages of your international passport to enable us file necessary documents at our high court probate division for the release of this sum of money in your favor.

It was agreed also that your share in this deal after a successful transfer of the money into your nominated bank account will be 30% of the entire sum calculated to be $3,459,000.00 (Three Million Four Hundred and Fifty Nine Thousand U S Dollars) $8,000,000.00 (Eight Million U S Dollars) will be our share, I will be coming personally to meet with you to receive our share.We have calculated the entire transaction to cost us $71,000.00 (Seventy One Thousand U S Dollars) as administrative/processing fee, ranging from probate court processing fee to bank administrative charges.

I want to re-assure you that we have the legal might, documentary facts to establish your claim of this money as the next of kin to the deceased without hitches.


Yours faithfully
Francisco Garnelo
[email protected]
Associate Partner

Welcome to Scamwarners, and thanks for your posting. It means that other potential victims can google for it .It is as you suspect, a scam. A "Next of Kin" scam, so not a new one.

The deceased (Name now withheld since this is our second letter to you).

This will be the first email, but they can't give you the name of the deceased, until you tell them your name.There will be fees to pay via Western Union before you can receive the imaginary fortune, of course.

Hi there Alanc and welcome.

Points to note on the email you received.

1. As Mr Tambourine Man says - They claim this is the 2nd letter they have sent you, conveniently allowing them to leave out the "deceased's" name until after you reply.

2. There is a real company called "Cliiford Chance LLP". They are a larger law concern.

3. They claim to have been the deceased's lawyers for over 15 years, they claim to be a UK firm, the money is supposed to be in a UK bank, but the money is all quoted in US Dollars.

4. Would a major internation law concern really try and encourage you to participate in breaking not only UK law, but International law as well, plus numerous codes of conduct. They only want you to help them so that they can get their hands on the "fortune". They consider this to legal.

5. Look at the email address you were given. xxxxx:sify.com
Sify is an indian based FREE email provider. Same as yahoo, gmail, hotmail and many others. This allows the sender to pretend to be anywhere in the world (there are means of tracing the source of the email to a specific country) and can be set up within minutes, and without revealing any real life details.
Any reputable large company, bank or the like would have their own computer systems and their owm email domain.

There is a very good saying that it is worth bearing in mind:

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Thank you for having the common sense to spot this as a possible scam, and for finding us here. By you posting the question and us giving answers, it provides more evidence for anyone else that is searching for information on suspicious emails.

Just as an FYI to add to this, notice the email at sify.com.

Sify is India's leading integrated Internet-Marketing Solutions and Service Provider with a variety of businesses that are directly linked to the Internet

Why would a law firm in Britian use a web service provider in India?

Please note that this post was made by a scammer from Lagos Nigeria who joined our site posing as a staff member in order to try to further his scam. He must not like the work we're doing here to save victims. I am leaving this post intact as an example of the lengths a scammer will go to try to continue a scam. -Jillian (a real site admin)

Dear Readers,

This mail serves as a deterrent to all future complainants and visitors of this page on the above discussed subject matter, The mail as purportedly sent to Alanc is a ploy to foil the name and integrity of the organisation and in particular the subject matters reputation {Francisco Garnelo}.

A report was filed to our office from the U.k of recent and after necessary and exhaustive investigations it was decided that the claim by our first writer is malicious.

We have also discovered that the allegation by Alanc cannot be proven as We have asked Him to provide proof that any mail was sent to him as what he reported here was a mere copy and paste from anywhere. We have found out and established the legitimacy of Clifford Chance LLP and Francisco Garnelo being a registered staff of the organisation.

We use this media to apologise to CLIFFORD CHANCE LLP and in particular FRANCISCO GARNELO for the erroneous publication of their names as a fraudulent one on this site. On extensive investigations Francisco Garnelo is indeed a reputable lawyer for the firm.

Adequate attention will be paid to this matter soonest.

Regards
Administrative Team
Scamwarners.com

^^^^^

This is of course an entirely bogus posting by the scammer himself. And a classic example of just how stupid scammers can be.

Welcome Site_Admin.

I must have missed the memo where you were given the keys to the site.

I guess you're my boss now.

Thank you for removing any possibility of doubt that Francisco Garnelo is a scammer.

Edit to add:

I'm glad to see we have an admin who is located in West Africa.

Site_Admin's IP: 212.100.69.10, Nigeria (Lagos)

With boots on the ground in Lagos, we can probably be much more effective.

I have edited the post made by "site_admin" to note that he is a scammer. I think it was quite a bold attempt on his part to pose as staff here, as if we wouldn't notice.

It's a perfect example of how a scammer will use ANY tactic he can think of to try to make himself seem legitimate. All posts here by support staff are accurate. This is indeed a scam.

Alanc.
If the scammer has indeed sent you a PM, feel free to publish it in here. The rule that this cannot be done without the sender's consent surely does not apply in this case.

The Enchantress was good enough to point me to this link:

http://www.concurrences.com/cv.php3?id_ ... 86&lang=fr

Francisco may be a real person, but you can be sure if such a person exists, and works for that bank, he won't be emailing you from Nigeria with offers of huge sums of money.

Scammers often impersonate real people to give their scams credibility. Bear that in mind if you decide to publish your credentials online somewhere.

Maybe it was the scammer's attempt at an "April Fool's" joke...


It is pretty creative to try to look like a part of the forum's management. He should have had a catchy Avatar though.

I cannot count how many times I have heard a line like this:

We have also discovered that the allegation by Alanc cannot be proven as We have asked Him to provide proof that any mail was sent to him as what he reported here was a mere copy and paste from anywhere.

from various forms of scammers (online and in real life). It is the "who me?" that is so often used when they are called on their deceit.


This was particularly brazen:

Regards
Administrative Team
Scamwarners.com

Unbelievable. Do they really think we are that stupid?

Makes it even more funny to me because I do occasionally work with the real company he mentioned. They have been notified.

I hope the real website administrators leave this exchange in place, because all new readers can learn a lot from it.

First, just looking a little more closely at any scam email usually shows that it is a scam. All the phony scam-type info is right there in the original scam email.

Then, we have "site_adim" who tries to tell us that it's all ok, and he signs his name Administrative Team
Scamwarners.com. That's supposed to make it look real.

But again, look just a little timy bit closer, and you'll see that "site_admin" has posted just another scam. Besides the ridiculous way of writing (that we all recognize as being from scammers), he is just "registered member" as you can see just below his name. Compare that to the real site administrators here, or even the humble scam warners and scam advisors here. The site tells you that we all really exist. Anybody can sign in here using any name, and they become "registered member." That's all this particular scammer did.

That's just the same trick that they play on victims when they first contact them. Anybody can pretend to be from a big bank like Banco Halifax and get an email address like [email protected] instead of the official address [email protected]. One victim has now lost well over $100,000 after being taken in by just such an email address, and I think he still doesn't realize he's been scammed.

So, please always look carefully at what people send you or what they post here. A small effort at the beginning can save you a lifetime of grief later.

What, we had a filthy scammer here while I was asleep?

Can I play with him too? I promise to play nice

Proof if any were needed that the ambition of these dishonest half chancers is only exceeded by their stupidity.

Site Admin indeed ...