Scam of the day – January 18, 2024 – Jeffrey Epstein Email Scam

Steven Weisman, Esq.

2 years ago

We are all quite familiar with the Nigerian Email scam where you are promised great sums of money if you assist a Nigerian or someone elsewhere in his effort to transfer money out of his country. Common variations of the scam include the movement of embezzled funds by corrupt officials, a dying man who wants to make charitable gifts, a minor bank official trying to move the money of deceased foreigners out of his bank without the government taking it or, as in this case, abandoned funds. However, the truth is the essence of the Nigerian email scam doesn’t have much to do with Nigeria, but merely is a scam where you are promised a large amount of free money based on a ridiculous premise. In most variations of this scam, although you are told initially that you do not need to contribute anything financially to the endeavor, you soon learn that it is necessary for you to contribute increasingly large amounts of money for various reasons, such as fees, bribes, insurance or taxes before you can get anything. Of course, the victim ends up paying money to the scammer, but never receives anything in return.

Now, in what must be the most absurd version of the Nigerian email scam, people are reporting receiving the following email:

“Hello. I am [REDACTED] an Asian investment manager and personal financial adviser to late Mr. Jeffrey Epstein of USA who committed suicide while in detention. This message is regarding his estate ($35.2m) which is presently in a bank somewhere. I want to front you as the Next-of-Kin to the deceased since he died without leaving a WILL. At the successful completion of my proposal, the bank will release the funds and have it transferred into your bank account. We are going to share the ($35.2m) on 50:50% formula. I will give you details concerning the funds once you indicate interest to proceed with me. I look forward to your urgent response.”

Epstein, as I am sure you remember was a wealthy, convicted pedophile who has been back in the news recently when thousands of pages of his documents were released by a federal judge following the settlement of a civil case against Epstein’s estate.

TIPS

This is a simple scam to avoid. It preys upon people whose greed overcomes their good sense. If you receive such an email, the first thing you should ask yourself is how does this possibly relate to you and why would you be singled out to be so lucky to be asked to participate in this arrangement. Since there is no good answer to either question, you should merely hit delete and be happy that you avoided a scam.

Often as with this email, the emails are sent from an email address that has no relation to the purported sender which is an indication that the email is being sent through a botnet of hacked computers. The email address of the sender of this email has absolutely no relation to the purported sender of the email. In addition, it is important to note that nowhere in this particular version of the scam email is your name mentioned. The scam email is obviously being sent out as a mass mailing.

Finally, it is interesting to note that in some instances, the scammers sending these emails intentionally make them completely outrageous such as this one is in order to weed out people who are not the most gullible and greedy so they can focus their attention on those people who are more likely to respond and fall victim to such obviously ridiculous emails.

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#Nigerianemail #Jeffrey Epstein #scams