'inheritance scam?'

zoya from middle of america -

A while ago a friend of mine was corresponding with this so-called laywer who claimed that he was telated to some man [who he never heard of before] that recently died. Of course his name was on the will and he needed my friend to accept the money, via paypal. He looked into it and decided to not do it as he was too scared that it'd be a scam. But i wonder, how could someone steal money out of a paypal account, aren't paypal accounts fairly secure [other than email phishing etc]. So what would the point be? I would have said credit card, instead of paypal. The whole thing definitely does sound fishy though and i wouldn't do it either.

Comment #1 Sweetness from Earth, the Universe -

I have received many e-mails about inheritances and business ventures where they need a go-between in order to clear money from the U.S. to somewhere in Europe.

These are all scams and your friend was very lucky not to get involved with any of it.

There is a phishing expedition going on with e-bay right now using PayPal. All the documentation is totally phony. My friend got an inquiry on one of her items and they wanted to do the transaction through PayPal. She got suspicious about something in the e-mail and decided to get as much information as she could. The more information she received the phonier it became.

All of these "Inheritances", Business Schemes, and Paypal phishing expeditions are total scams.

I will tell you that having worked in law in estates that no one does that type of transaction when it comes to an inheritance. They bring the party into the law office and do a background search on them as well as take photocopies of all of their identification and do legal searches on all of it.

So tell your friend to count himself as one of the lucky ones that didn't bite.

Comment #2 zoya from middle of america -

Eek, i use ebay a lot to sell my items. So that makes me nervous. Could your friend tell you a bit more about her experience so the rest of us ebay sellers can know what to look out for?

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