According to this email, a senior banker in Turkey wants to present you as the beneficiary of a multi-million dollar fund left in his late client’s bank account.
Supposedly, you have the same last name as the banker’s client, who died back in 2005. According to the message, all of the client’s family died in a 2003 earthquake, and he thus had no next of kin to leave his money to. So, claims the banker, in exchange for a share of the money, he can make you the beneficiary. He claims that he will use his position and influence to make sure the bank releases the $17 million fund to you.
He asks that you get back to him quickly so that he can arrange for the deal to proceed.
But, in fact, the message is just a typical advance fee scam like the many thousands that have preceded it.
The sender is not a banker and he is not in charge of some forgotten million dollar fund as he claims. There is no fund. He is a scammer intent on tricking you into sending him your money and your personal information.
If you fall for his tricks and reply, you will soon be asked to send money to cover various expenses that are supposedly associated with the processing and transfer of the fund. The scammer will insist that you must cover these costs upfront, or the deal will not proceed.
If you do send money, he will demand more and more fees until you run out of money to send or at least realize that you are being conned.
At the end of the scam, he will stop communicating with you. You will no longer be able to reach him and he will simply disappear with your money. You won’t get this money back. And, of course, you will never get the 17 million dollars, which never existed in the first place.
And, the scammer may also be able to use the personal and financial information he collected from you to steal your identity.
An example of the scam email:
URGENT ASSISTANCE…GREETINGS,
With all due respect, I am Mr. Heang James a senior banker in Turkey with Turkish Economy Bank. It is with good spirit of heart I open up this great opportunity to you. A deceased client of mine that shares the same last name /surname as yours died as a result of heart-related condition on March 12th 2005. His heart condition was due to the death of all his family members who were on vacation and died in the Bam earthquake disaster on the 26th December 2003 in Bam City of Iran where they all lost their lives. More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Bam_earthquake
There is a draft account opened here in my bank since 1999 by my late client, a national of your country. He was a geologist, a business man, a miner at Vezir Mining International company here in Turkey and also a mining consultant to several other mining conglomerates operating in Cambodia, china, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam, before he passed away on the March 12th 2005, leaving nobody as the next of kin of his account after his death.
The fixed amount in this account is $17, 500, 000.00.(Seventeen Million, Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars). I want to present you as the beneficiary, I will use my position and influence in our bank to make sure the bank releases this money to you for us to share. I have all the details and required information to make you the beneficiary to the funds. This transaction bears no risk. If I wait for days and I do not hear from you, I shall look for another person.
Kindly get back to me for more details.
Sincerely Yours
Heang James
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
