Is this some kind of scam? Attorneys weigh in please.

[Allisonfaye]

I received a phone call over a week ago from a ''process server''. She was trying to find me from a place I lived (in another state) 20 years ago. She had my address from then and asked if that was me. I said yes. I was curious. She confirmed my current address, which she had and married name, which I gave her. She claimed it was for some probate attorney. I know all of the information I gave her was public record. She didn''t ask for anything else like SSN or any credit card info. She also mentioned a name but I was unclear on whether this name was supposed to be the deceased but I had never heard the name, regardless. I figured when I got the papers I would figure it out and it would lead to nothing. So a week or so later, I have heard nothing. I had her number on the caller ID so I called her back. I don''t care about inheriting anything (although certainly it would be nice) but I just wanted to probe to find out if she was legit. I couldn''t really conclude anything. She sounded professional but when I asked her the name of the law firm, she refused to tell me saying they like to contact the person. Hmm?? Red flag?

She was surprised that I hadn''t received anything yet and said she would contact the attorney and tell them I am waiting. Again, I am not anxiously awaiting some huge inheritance. I didn''t even really know anyone from that town anymore and I had only lived there for 1.5 years.

Do any attorneys have any thoughts or anyone else? Is this a scam of some kind?

 

[Independent Gal]

That sounds hugely, hugely suspcious to me. Not giving the name of their firm?!? Nope. That doesn''t sound right. I''d call the BBB in that town and ask if they know anything about this sort of thing.

 

[Madam Bijoux]

I'm not an attorney, but something smells fishy here. If this person really did work for a law firm, there is no reason why she would not have given you the firm's name.

Whenever anyone you don't know calls and asks you for any information about yourself, you should:
1. Refuse to tell the caller anything. Ask the caller for his/her name, the name of the organization he/she represents and the organization's phone number. Tell the caller that you will call the company to verify that the caller works there.
2. Go on line to verify the name of the company and the company's phone number (you can check it in google or 411.com or the yellow pages).
3. Call the company and verify whether the person who called you works there and ask the reason for the call.

After you have done that, it will be easier for you to decide whether or not to give them the information they want. In your case, you might also try that state's bar association to verify whether there is such a law firm and whether the lawyer was disbarred or anything like that.

 

[door knob solitaire]

I apologize I am not an attorney as you requested your reply from...(I am just a blow hard...yacker...and have an opinion on just about everything!!!

) just wanted to affirm that Madam B. has the best advice, all should follow it.

If this person is legitimate she would have had no problem obliging a request of identity proof...with at least the attorney name. She knows who hired her...the name wasn't hard to remember. If anything else she should have offered to call you back with the information. The lawfirm wouldn't have told her not to reveal who they were...that is the whole point of this exercise. The only thing I can think of is she needs proof that SHE was the one that CONTACTED you. Therefore she won't get paid until she can concretely prove that she served you. If she revealed the law firm you could say a little bird told you to call them. She would be out her fee. Does that hold any merit?

My other thought is, It doesn't sound like a probate server...it sounds like a lawsuit server. They are very conniving. Will act and stage all sorts of things to get your name and identity out of you. A heart attack, car trouble...they thrive on the "kill". And use deception to do it. Have recent experience on this...as a normal person you would be more lax in revealing information knowing YOU were going to INHERIT something. It is human nature to think of the payout...that is why the Nigerian scam is so successful right now. You know you help me launder 3 million and I will give you $800K for your work? What would ever make you reveal your banking information to a complete stranger? Well, many are doing it...

One more thing, if you get no satisfaction on who or what...I would run a credit check immediately, and think of this as an initiation of identity theft. Be sure to watch your credit for at least 6 months after something like this. She can be selling your info and the new buyer may no use it for a while. Try to nip this in the bud on all angles.

Next time...say nothing...you think you aren't providing anything pertinent...but there was obviously a reason she asked you questions...if it were all a matter of public record, she truly had no reason to ask. Trained people have a way of leading you to reveal things you aren't even aware you have.

Be diligent.

DKS

 

[crown1]

did she identify herself? if so, you might be able to check her out from the website for american process servers. if you know what state and her name it is a start. hth.

 

[door knob solitaire]

On the lines of identity theft...the call could have been made to update the correct information as they were denied. Just a thought.

Also, you know those inserts in newspapers that alert people of lost monies? Your county where you lived also has a list of money owed to you through instances such as home sale, tax refund, and odd little things that you don''t know exist ~old bank accounts...savings accounts. People get paid a fee or percentage for locating you. They are not going to reveal who they are, or why they are calling because any information they give may reveal to you what it is...again they will loose their fee.

So I was thinking how to help you ...and I had an EUREKA moment...I just remembered hubby and I had sold our home...and 10 months later (this was over 20 years ago-so I may have facts off a tad)...anyway a period of less than a year I got the same call you just got!! Naive, I answered what was phrased to me...and it was also revealed there was money owed to me.

I called my attorney, and he told me of this allotment that the tax office has...and odds were it was from the house transaction. So I called the court house and GAVE them the pertinent identity stuff, and low and behold there was $2600 waiting for hubby. They just didn''t know where to send it.

The caller was someone who I guess you can say...bought the paper...and in turn would receive a kickback. So this situation with you, it could be something as simple. I am sorry, I can''t seem to remember what office or what the allotment was. But it was definitely from an official office of the city I lived.

Hope that helps...maybe someone with a larger knowledge base can offer insight into this. Or simply contact the county where you lived, and ask them what office to contact for lost money.

DKS

 

[phoenixgirl]

Aren't there those websites where you can search unclaimed funds? I know I've visited them before and found that the state of Michigan owed my brother $30. It's probably something like that. Anyone know the website?

ETA: Here, try this: http://www.missingmoney.com/

 

[Allisonfaye]

Since I have lived in several states, I long ago checked all of their unclaimed property sites, so I doubt that it is.

I feel so stupid. I only remember her first name. I do still have her number on the caller ID. I guess I could call her back again and probe further.

 

[Allisonfaye]

Date: 8/10/2007 11:01:05 AM
Author: door knob solitaire
I apologize I am not an attorney as you requested your reply from...(I am just a blow hard...yacker...and have an opinion on just about everything!!!

) just wanted to affirm that Madam B. has the best advice, all should follow it.

If this person is legitimate she would have had no problem obliging a request of identity proof...with at least the attorney name. She knows who hired her...the name wasn''t hard to remember. If anything else she should have offered to call you back with the information. The lawfirm wouldn''t have told her not to reveal who they were...that is the whole point of this exercise. The only thing I can think of is she needs proof that SHE was the one that CONTACTED you. Therefore she won''t get paid until she can concretely prove that she served you. If she revealed the law firm you could say a little bird told you to call them. She would be out her fee. Does that hold any merit?

My other thought is, It doesn''t sound like a probate server...it sounds like a lawsuit server. They are very conniving. Will act and stage all sorts of things to get your name and identity out of you. A heart attack, car trouble...they thrive on the ''kill''. And use deception to do it. Have recent experience on this...as a normal person you would be more lax in revealing information knowing YOU were going to INHERIT something. It is human nature to think of the payout...that is why the Nigerian scam is so successful right now. You know you help me launder 3 million and I will give you $800K for your work? What would ever make you reveal your banking information to a complete stranger? Well, many are doing it...

One more thing, if you get no satisfaction on who or what...I would run a credit check immediately, and think of this as an initiation of identity theft. Be sure to watch your credit for at least 6 months after something like this. She can be selling your info and the new buyer may no use it for a while. Try to nip this in the bud on all angles.

Next time...say nothing...you think you aren''t providing anything pertinent...but there was obviously a reason she asked you questions...if it were all a matter of public record, she truly had no reason to ask. Trained people have a way of leading you to reveal things you aren''t even aware you have.

Be diligent.

DKS

Sorry, I didn''t mean ONLY attorneys answer. I just thought they might know if this sounds legit. I was also wanting regular non-attorneys to comment on whether they had had a similar experience.

I do think I should watch my credit.

As far as any kind of lawsuit, I can''t imagine anyone wanting to sue me. I haven''t even seen that place in years and I think the statute of limitations on any kind of lawsuit would have long since passed.

 

[crown1]

does the area code of the number on the caller id match the area code where you used to live?

 

[door knob solitaire]

You see her call may have been a fishing expedition. She knew you had a previous address. You are just assuming that the issue is from that area. But it may not be the case. Again her call was to obtain information FROM you. The information she revealed to you may all be false and misleading.

Is there anyway some adopted or long lost relative is hunting for you? Again they would start at the last place...and then confirm you are in fact the one from the last place. It could be an old class mate? Maybe someone who you did something nice for just passed and left you something in their will to express their appreciation. It may not be a negative thing. All of these instances would hire a server or PI.

I am sorry ...now I seem to be filling your mind with all kinds of thoughts. Maybe you are the long lost relative of a Bill Gates...or even a princess or something. Whew...does that leave this post with good thoughts?

DKS

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I would never give any information over the phone. If they have my number, I assume they can access my address. So anyone who calls (and that is rare because I use caller ID and rarely answer unknown calls) is told to send me information in the mail and I will contact them if interested. I immediately suspect a scam when someone calls and asks for any personal information.

 

[monarch64]

I agree with never sharing info over the phone, even if you are supposedly just verifying information. My dad always told me to tell whoever it was to "put it in writing and send it to whatever address you have there." I think that''s pretty sound advice.

Allisonfaye, sorry to hear you had such a strange conversation, I hope everything turns out ok.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Allisonfaye, I used to work for a major financial institution and I was in charge of escheatment efforts for the firm. (Escheatment is basically that if property--in this case financial assets--get coded as "unclaimed" through a certain process the assets then have to be turned over to the State of last known domicile for safekeeping until the rightful owner claims them.) We would use vendors (DF King, Georgeson, ISS [which I believe stood for Institutional Sharholder Services]) to find the people to whom assets belong. The vendors would in turn use any means they could, including process servers and that sort of thing, to find the owners. The impetus was that the vendors were entitled to a percentage of the assets that they managed to get back to the rightful owners. (Some owners would object to this, but the reality is that have 75% of an assets you didn''t know or forgot you had is better than having none of it, so folks usually came around, LOL.)

You mention that you''re not expecting any huge inheritance or anything like that. The way the search process works is that the vendor gets a file of all lost assets (we would submit one going a low as literally $10) and the file is then run and the results are searched. Once the identity of the potential owner was established the vendor would send paperwork out that explained what was going on and how to retrieve the asset. You would be surprised as how low a dollar amount the vendors would go after because its the law of aggregation; find enough $1,000 asset owners and eventually you''re talking real money.

Also, about them not telling you specifics about where the asset is from. That is how my vendors worked too because if they said they were calling about your abandoned Goldman Sachs Emerging Markets mutual fund account the light bulb would go off and they would say, sheeet! that''s right! I haven''t seen a statement on that account every since we moved here to Oklahoma 10 years ago and I must have never called to change the address on the account. and then they would call and get the statement reactivated to them at the new address, and the vendor who did all the work would get cut out of the equation.

It was not uncommon for the vendor to track down heirs of decedents who were entitled to abandoned assets, which sounds like it may be the case with your scenario.

Sorry about the super long post here, and what I''m describing might be different than what''s going on in your situation, but I''m just trying to say that this ***MIGHT*** be legitimate. If it is you should get some info in the mail and you''ll have to fill it out and get it notarized and send it back. The paperwork should explain that the vendor will receive a portion of whatever assets are recovered to you.

***BTW, I''m not saying it IS legitimate, but it COULD be because I used to run a program that sounds very similar to this and I assure it it was 100% on the up and up.

I have to run off and get a contract from a client right now, but I''m sure there are gaps in my explanation here because I don''t have a lot of time to think it all through and tell you everything you probably want to know, but when I get back I''ll come back to this thread and see if I need to add anything.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Date: 8/10/2007 2:33:05 PM
Author: phoenixgirl
Aren't there those websites where you can search unclaimed funds? I know I've visited them before and found that the state of Michigan owed my brother $30. It's probably something like that. Anyone know the website?


ETA: Here, try this: http://www.missingmoney.com/

In Illinois (which is where Allisonfaye is) the site is www.cashdash.net. I actually helped one of my clients retrieve several thousand dollars from a property that he sold many (I think 15) years before where a tax refund was due but it wasn't issued until after the closing and he had no idea about it. For some reason (thanks to the uber-efficient US Postal service -- NOT) the notice never got forwarded to his new address and the asset sat unclaimed until I found it on the list. I've also helped people retrieve much smaller amounts, but the tax refund was the biggest asset.

That being said, the state that an asset ends up going to does not always make sense, especially years later. For instance, Allisonfaye said that the person mentioned a state that she lived in a long time ago. That does make sense. But when I worked at the financial institution we would sometimes have assets for employees (yes, I know, how does an EMPLOYEE of a major financial institution forget he/she had an account there? And sometimes I'm talking MAJOR dollars too!) that had been transferred to our overseas offices and we would have to send the $ to the State of NY, which was our corporate domicile, because there was no other state to send it to at that point.

 

[door knob solitaire]

Good informative post Dee Jay.

What you so eloquently said is what I was trying to express in my posts. I think her main thing is she was more hung up on the etiquette or lack thereof. She did say she wasn''t looking to inherit anything...just wondered who it was. (oh come on, we know she is willing to accept any funds that may have been found...so it has to be she is so worried about WHO it was.)

So I hope your professional insight and explanation will affirm that some people don''t use proper etiquette to obtain what they are attempting to do.

That letter you mentioned...I also received in my situation. You are right they do tell you that they will receive a percentage. Actually I think the form was similar to a power of attorney. You see these people aren''t goint to reveal to you ANYTHING until they lock it up tight to get what they deserve.

That is when we did the leg work ourselves and found the money. We got $100% well, uncle sam got his share.

DKS

 

[Dee*Jay]

Thanks DKS! I was afraid as I kept going on and on and on that there was no chance it was ever going to make sense because there were so many disjointed pieces and I didn't have time to bring it all together. (And I also apologize for all the typos--I was typing as fast as I could to get out the door on time!)

My most frustrating case was a situation where a grandmother had a pretty substantial retirement account with us. Her daughter was named as the primary beneficiary and the daughter's two daughters were named as the contingent beneficiaries. Tragically, the grandmother and the mother were killed in a car accident and the two young daughters (one was an infant and one was a toddler at the time) were assigned a custodian by the court. I don't recall what the story was with the father, but he was out of the picture for some reason. Anyway, the vendor tracked down the custodian through the court records and the custodian flat out refused to take the $. She thought she was being scammed in some way. Usually the vendor doesn't want you (the financial company) to have any contact with the owner of the assets because of the fear of losing their percentage, but in this case they put me in contact with the girl's custodian (of course we agreed to pay the vendor) and even I couldn't talk any sense into her. She kept saying she was smarter than that and there was no way she was going to let us steal from her. What a shame--there was enough $ there to have paid for the girl's college educations and then some, but I was never able to get it to them.

My most annoying case was one of our very own employees who moved (from one Park Avenue address to another, LOL) and somehow a $15K+ monthly dividend check didn't follow her in the mail. I tracked her down in the nick of time--the assets were going to be escheated literally within a day or two, and she was *annoyed with me* for calling her. Her comment was something to the effect of "How dare you bother me with something like this. Talk to my secretary." Click. I swear that if I could have found a way to have given that money to charity rather than getting it to her I would have!!! (Does that make me a bad person... ?) But get it to her I did.

There were also people who would "lose" assets on purpose due to legal reasons, usually a divorce. There are all sorts of rules around an account being coded as "lost", but they start with returned mail. So someone could write something on the unopened statement envelope, like "Deceased" or "Moved - no forwarding address" and if two pieces of mail in a row came back to us we had to code it as lost and suspend further mailings. Those assets would then go dormant and get left out of the calculation when the household was being divided up. Later, people would come back to us because they "suddenly remembered" about the money. Oh, and can you please add my new wife's/husband's name to the account?

Anyway, please forgive the threadjack Allisonfaye!

 

[Allisonfaye]

No problem, DeeJay.

I am still scratching my head. I did purchase a very small property while living there and sold it. I guess it could relate to that but I don''t really see how. I didn''t go to school there or anything like that. I am fairly certain the area code was from the right area but I can easily check that. My sister works for the local police dept and she said she would call the lady and grill her (which is what I tried to do). Normally, I am pretty good at that sort of thing but I honestly don''t know what to ask her.

 

[door knob solitaire]

Sorry to thread Jack,

Dee*Jay... on that same annoying client you mentioned, my husbands attorney noticed a mistake in the sellers deed of the property we bought. We paid to make the correction and sent the paper work on to her to sign and of course show it to her attorney. The problem was ...had she died, the land or proceeds would not have gone on to her heir or foundation.

You would have thought we were selling aluminum siding. She was totally put off and replied the same way your annoyed one did. How dare you! Arrgghhh. Oh, this woman is EXTREMELY wealthy...and it probably was just a drop in the bucket...but my attorney did some other checking and come to find out...all of her stuff was this way. We were out $450 in attorney time...never asked for it...just thought it was the right thing to do. Now her assets are corrected. Oh well, you can''t make everyone grateful I guess.

DKS