Email Correspondence Between Scammer, Lawyer Shows How Elaborate These Frauds Can Be
A recent trail of emails posted online between a phishing client and a California lawyer—who took the bait but eventually spit out the hook—offers a chilling look at how a lawyer might quickly be parted with big chunks of money. This particular scammer apparently landed and fileted an Ontario lawyer.
This cautionary tale, which dramatically unfolds at “Avoid a Claim” Blog, gives a clear lesson on how phishing scammers use humanization and personalization to draw their marks in for the kill. When “Rika Takahashi,” a Japanese woman who is hiring the California lawyer to recover unpaid support from her ex-husband in California, mentions that her small daughter is seriously ill, the lawyer finally breaks away from the dispassionate approach and engages at a personal level, mentioning his five children and two granddaughters. He adds, “I hope you were not too badly impacted by the recent tsunami.”
Before then, he’d only been after the nuts-and-bolts of the matter, repeatedly following up to nail down his $7,500 retainer. Many who don’t know the lyrics of this particular story can hum tune, just the same. The ex-husband quickly sends the lawyer a check for $189,600, and “Rika” tells the attorney to deduct his retainer from that and wire her the rest.
The correspondence takes a turn when Rika later asks the lawyer to instead make a wire transfer to her brother’s account, and the lawyer responds that he needs a notarized statement from her if she wants him to transfer money to a third party. “Rika” insists in multiple subsequent emails and (unanswered) phone calls that because of her sick daughter, she has no time to get a notarized statement.
