Michigan

Attorneys - Beware of the scam d'jour - The over seas client asking you to enforce her divorce settlement

In the last few months, I have noticed that I have been getting similar emails from people who claim to be stuck over seas (usually in Japan, they say) and would like me to enforce their divorce settlement. This mornings' read like this:

Name: Jennifer Lunyang Email: aaxtos@yahoo.com Phone: +81-3-3423-8001 Interested In: Dear Counsel,

I am contacting your firm in regards to my divorce settlement with my ex husband (Frank McCain) who resides in your country. I am currently relocated to Japan because of financial problems which I encountered after he abandoned us in Europe. We had an out of court agreement for him to pay $380,000.00 plus legal fees. He has only paid me $24,000 since which was not enough to settle the bills,legal fees and the childrens school fees .I am hereby seeking your firm to represent me in collecting the balance from him.

He has agreed already to pay me the balance but it is my belief that a Law firm like yours is needed to help me collect the payment faster from my ex-husband or litigate this matter if he fails to pay as promised. The payment has been overdue for over 3months.

I await your urgent response and also let me know what your rates are as well as your agreement /retainer form.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Lunyang

I highly doubt that there is a Jennifer Lunyang in Japan. Her account is at yahoo.com. I would suspect that if she were stuck in Japan, that she would have a more Japanese sounding ISP hosting her free email account.

I dont know for a fact as to how the scam works, but I can easily see her having me send a demand letter to her "ex- spouse" and magically, i get a check for a huge amount of money. Presciently, she notifies me that she learns that her ex has sent me the money and then tells me a sob story about how she is destitute and needs her share as soon as possible and if wouldn't mind send it her ASAP. It would only be after I deposited the check and sent her the share, that I learned that the underlying check is bogus.

Attorneys - please be careful of this scan. its the newest flavor for getting hurt.

Full post as published by Michigan Collection Law Blog on March 29, 2010 (boomark / email).