Spam email | Internet Fraud

We receive a huge amount of emails asking us to check if a solicitor is who they say they are; our clients may have been sent an email saying that Great, Great Uncle Tom has died and left them a million pounds or they are due a massive tax return, won the lotto etc

Most people will realise that these emails or letters are spam, perpetrated by crooks somewhere in a seedy back room, but the fact is that lots of people are taken in by these crooks as they become better and better at what they do.

How it tends to work - an example

Hello
I am acting for Great Uncle Tom, You are set to receive massive amount of money....

Stage two

You are sent fake copies of passports or birth certificates
You may then be introduced to a second scammer - this will normally be a 'professional' claiming to be a Banker, Tax expert or Lawyer.

Stage three

You are normally requested to send evidence that you are who you say you are, the irony of it!
They could ask for bank details, then as far as they are concerned the money shot happens, you will be asked to pay a fee 'admin charge', 'Taxes', 'Bank fees', could be anything and will probably start of small and grow and grow.


The only two things that are certain are that they will not stop asking for money, and you will never receive a pot of gold.

What are the warning signs?

You may say the fact you did not buy a lotto ticket in Canada or France may ring some alarm bells, or why would a business man from the Congo choose me, to help him get his £300 million out of his country for humanitarian reasons (for 2% of the pot)!

But as I say these crooks are getting smart and it is possible to get taken in

A few prima facie checks.

Look for a telephone number; is the code from the country in question? Almost all of the emails I receive the fraudsters have numbers that start + (44)70 or 070 - these phone numbers are normally sales numbers - or scams - can be directed to any location in the world.


Look at the email address - does it look right - for example would the bank of England have an email address @admin.in.th (real case) I doubt they do - however the scammers normally do a very good job of hiding this.


Check the quality of the English - some of the letters I have seen i am sure my 10 year old daughter could have done a better job.


Don't leave it to chance.

If you want to check that a solicitor is who they say they are you will need to do some searches, you can use the 'find a solicitor service' online provided via The Law Society web site.

Or if you would like to talk to someone call the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on 0870 606 2555 or, if you are calling from outside the UK, call +44 (0) 121 329 6800. They are open till 6 pm GMT weekdays, closed at the weekends. The SRA also have a very good section on their web site about bogus solicitors giving examples of frauds and alerts on any new reported frauds.

Recently a couple in Thames Mead were jailed for carrying out a £1 million scam that took a ladies life savings, please be aware that this happens, check you know who you are dealing with, and contact the Law Society or the SRA, to double check above all do not send any money.

If you have received an email that is fraudulent please take 5 minutes of your time to complete the on line form provided by Action Fraud Police team web site, it may help others or reduce this crime.

Ransom emails.

Many of us that run Microsoft windows on our computers could be at risk from an increasingly common threat that of ransom spam emails.

They tend to be delivered via spam email but can also be present in websites, the attachment when opened will encrypt your files, it will then display a ransom note stating you have to pay an amount of money £100-£600 to decrypt your files - there have been no examples of payment of this ransom working.

We would recommend that the computer is isolated, and you seek professional help to clean your files.

Report any examples of this to actionfraud.police.uk.

You should always backup your files, and have updated anti-virus protection in place, it is also good practice not to click on an attachment in any email that looks suspicious in anyway.