Inheritances, Lotteries and Unexpected Gifts

Wow, I received an email claiming to be from a London attorney, whose client had a large inheritance and no heirs, and had died in a car accident. The client had the same last name as mine, but was raised an orphan and never married or had kids. The attorney, for half the inheritance, would build proof that I was his only living relative. My guess is that some unexpected fee of a couple thousand dollars had to be paid out of my pocket before the payout could be processed. There was a time sensitive window, as the bank was about to seize the funds due to the time since death. The attorney would gladly deliver the payment on my behalf if I wired him the fee. This “attorney” operates from a HotMail email account. So professional....BarristerBob451@hotmai.com.

Yet another Inheritance scam - this one incorporates another scam discussed later:

Agabi and Associates.
Solicitors and Advocates.
5th floor, Unity House.
Lagos.
Dear Rick Lutes
I am Mr. paul agabi, a Lawyer by profession. I am the personal attorney to Mr. Laurence Lutes , a national of your country, who used to work with Chevron Oil Exploration Company in Nigeria, herein after shall be referred to as my client.
On the 21st of April 2000, my client, his wife and their onlye child were involved in a car accident along Lagos - Ibadan express road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives.

Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives. This has proved unsuccessful. I came to know about you through an enquiry I was making in the internet, and I found out you shared the same surname with my client, which is why I have decided to contact you, in order to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank.

Particularly, in a local commercial bank here where the deceased had an account valued at about US$ 15.5 Million Dollars, has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confisticated within the next ten official working days.
Since i have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 2 years now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name so that the proceeds of this account valued at US$15.5 Million Dollars can be paid to you and then you and me can share the money, on the ratio of 50% for me, and 50% for you.

I have all necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make. All I require is your honest co-operation to enable us see this business through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.
Please get in touch with me by email and send to me your telephone and fax numbers to enable us discuss further about the details of this transaction. 

Best regards, Mr. paul agabi.

****************

*Facebook Lottery - -  Following is an actual posting to my messenger account from   "Vanessa Hopkins" , a "Facebook Coordinator":

I am pleased to inform you of the result of the just concluded annual final draws held on the 6th of August 2015 by Facebook group in cash promotion to encourage the usage of Facebook worldwide, Your name was among the 20 lucky winners who won $650.000.00USD (Six hundred and Fifty Thousand United State dollars) each on the Facebook group promotion.

The online draws was conducted by a random selection of emails you were picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the Facebook in other to claim your $650.000.00USD the lottery program which is a new innovation by Facebook, is aimed at saying a big thank you to all our users for making Facebook their number one means to connect, communicate, relate and hook up with their families and friends over the years.

Your award is attached to Lucky Number (FB-225-7736), Ticket Number (FB-172-60), Batch Number (FB-0281/544) and Serial Number (99352748-2013)..Note them down now on a safe place and keep its very important

Send an email to Mr. Lincoln Howard through this email address now (onlinefacebookdept001@gmail.com) with the information about you below:
Full Name:
Contact Address:
Mobile Number:
Occupation:
Marital Status:
Sex:
Age:
Country of Residence:
Nationality:
Your Email Address:

***************

Quiz time...can you spot some obvious clues here?

Here's another....*Unexpected Gifts - -Richard and Angela Maxwell, a very sweet couple who were blessed with riches from the EuroMillions jackpot of 53,000,000 GBP!

"We appreciate your effort for writing back as we expected, you might be wondering how we got your email? We have made physical donations, also between ten different national charities and my wife and I came up with the idea of donating to some individuals over the internet. So we had to go look up email directories on LinkedIn and randomly selected few emails and that's how you got the notification from us about our Donation to you and we felt strongly to write you. We might not know your present condition and what you are going through in life, but we believe that this money will be of good help to you and your family. As we have earlier introduced ourselves, My Wife and I Have Decided to Present you with a Donation Grant of 750,000.00 GBP (Seven Hundred & Fifty Thousand British Pound) you can also confirm from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-32158366 Our intention is to be of immense blessing to others, at our age, we cannot continue to amass wealth without giving out to other people who are in need. We want you to be part of this blessing and give it out as gift for you to help Orphanage homes in your country and hoping it would be of help to you and others too, as this is our little way of showing our kind gesture and also to appreciate God for his grace upon our lives. it is our prayer that you receive this money, all we want from you is to be honest with us and help others from it too.

Now, all this being said, we have concluded plans with the bank to remit funds to you, so we require you to immediately get back to me with the information below and on confirmation of your response, we will provide you with further information on receiving the fund. 

Full Name:

Contact / resident Address:

Country/Nationality 

Age:

Sex:

Occupation:

Phone Number:

     A letter to receive your portion of the money from the bank or courier company will be giving to you once we receive your personal info. This is our personal money(winnings) and does not need any formal procedures, we have decided to make you the beneficiary of this fund so nobody can question that. Our only term is that you be sincere to us and help the less privilege people that's all."

(The Maxwells and their winnings were real. Many less honorable people took the opportunity to scam from this!)