There must be a web site where scammers’ can purchase their con’s. Not a day goes by in which I don’t receive this email:
Good Day Counsel,
My name is Pamela J. Lee, I am contacting your firm in regards to making a collection in relation to a divorce settlement initiated in March 2008 with my ex husband Robert Freeland in your jurisdiction. We mutually agreed under a Collaborative Participation Law Agreement to go our separate ways after 22 Years of marriage. Robert had agreed to pay me $681,500.00 under terms of the agreement so that I can settle down and to his credit he has paid me $54,000.00 but with a balance of $627,500.00.
I am currently visiting my husband in Tokyo for 12 weeks and I am seeking your legal assistance in sealing the agreement and making collection. I will be providing further information upon your request; I understand that being remarried does not void the agreement? Prior to our separation due to irreconcilable differences, I was a good house wife catering for our two children.
Please get back to me if this is a case you can undertake. He has agreed to pay me the balance and act courteously and in good faith, but it is my belief that a Law firm like yours is needed to help me make collection or litigate the matter if he fails to pay as promised. I look forward to your response, thank you.
Pamela Lee
You don’t have to be a fortune teller to see how this scheme will work. Money will be paid to the attorney by the spouse. The attorney will wire money to the client, only to later learn the he wrote a check against uncollectable funds (even if the bank had previously told the attorney that the money was available.)
This is a play on the too good to be true rule (just like the email in which you’ve been selected to save the treasury of some African nation.) In this case, the attorney thinks he can get an easy fee for doing no work. In the end, rather than getting something for nothing, the attorney will have a large liability to the bank and be reported to the disciplinary committee for bouncing an escrow check.
What I find amusing is that the facts of this email never change. I have to assume there is more than one schemer sending this constant stream of emails. These con artists go to such elaborate pains to advance their plots, you would think they would at least modify the form solicitation letter.
