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A Surprising Inheritance

07 Oct in The Cottage | Comments (5)

I received a surprising letter in today’s post. An envelope posted in the UK – stamped by smartstamp.co.uk. Inside the envelope was a letter – claiming to be from a solicitor in South Africa – Christian Nyengeri Solicitors – Pretoria, SA.

The long and short of the (lengthy) letter is that a certain Mr Arieo Bell (what a coincidence! That’s my surname!) passed away some time ago. This honourable and trustworthy solicitor has been trawling the internet, embassies and “other means” to locate dear, departed Mr Bell’s next of kin – as, would you believe, there is some inheritance that he is honour bound to pass on……

Goodness me – I was the “Bell” that popped up in his extensive search and he would now like me to contact him so that he can set up a “legitimate arrangement to protect both of us from any breach of the law”.

Now, I’m pretty sure that I get as much spam as anyone else – clever phishing emails, designed to con you into logging into false banking sites, tempting offers to “enhance your male-ness”, Russian ladies who would like me to look at their pictures…. I’m pretty sure I have seen them all. Someone must fall for these things – or whoever is sending them out wouldn’t bother surely…. But this person paid .41p to post this letter to me – in a windowed envelope, which made me think that there must be a return on his investment somehow and somewhere. It’s worrying isn’t it ?

I am going past a Police Station this afternoon, I’m going to drop my “letter” in to them – I wonder if they will do anything about it – they might just laugh at me…..

5 Comments »

Well, what a turn up for the books I have had one of these arrive today! My married name is Deane, yet I may be the heir to Arieo’s Deane’s fortune, my husband didn’t even get a mention and he is really fed up that I am about to inherit his family’s ‘lost’ wealth . This badly constructed lengthy letter fools no-one!!

Comment by mary deane — October 7, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
Mary – this is classic! I am trying to figure out if this spammer is still stuck in the 70′s – sending out his spam by snail mail – at .41p a pop or …. what? I can’t really see anyone falling for this?

Comment by jenni — October 7, 2010 @ 2:16 pm
The deluded individual actually thinks that the 41p is a good investment as he no doubt envisages that we will be forwarding our bank account details post haste so that he can transfer our inheritance!!

Comment by mary deane — October 7, 2010 @ 3:13 pm
Hi had one today
Salmons
This is being sent from the UK ! the date on letter is the 27.09.10 and the envelope has the 06.10.10 on it ie sent out yesterday from Africa?? dont think so – i will be taking to police as they will be making money some how and possibly using some businesses postage account???

Comment by Salmons — October 7, 2010 @ 8:51 pm
I did actually go and drop my letter off at the police station. As I expected, they have more important fish to fry – and apparently there are masses of this type of thing going around – but if that is the case, some poor unsuspecting (gullible) soul is falling for it – and then I believe that if the police took it more seriously, and made it harder for these people to get away with it, it would lessen… idealistic perhaps.

Comment by jenni — October 7, 2010 @ 11:32 pm

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A Surprising Inheritance

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