Sarah Johnson Divorce Settlement - Scam???

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From: "Sarah Johnson" <[email protected]>
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Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:13:15 -0600
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Hi Counsel

My name is Sarah Johnson. I am contacting your firm in regards to a divorce settlement with my ex husband Paul Johnson).who resides in your jurisdiction in USA. I am currently on assignment in Japan. We had an out of court Agreement (Collaborative Law
Agreement) for him to pay $750,450.00 plus legal fees. He has only paid me $50,000 since the agreement.

I am hereby seeking your firm to assist 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 payment from my ex-husband Mr Paul Johnson or litigate this matter if he fails to pay as promised.

Sincerely,

Sarah Johnson

Welcome here btran

I have a strong feeling that this is a scam. First sign of a possible scam is the IP address which traces back to Chennai India. This Sarah Johnson claims to be in Japan. The to address is undisclosed receipients which is often used by scammers when they send out bulk email. Then the email itself is vague.
If i may ask btran, do you have or work for a law firm? If not then it's 100% certain it's a scam.

100% complete scam, format has popped up a lot in the past month, though the name changes on a regular basis.

From http://clallamcountybar.com/bar-news/

Beware: Attorney scam
Published November 5, 2009 in Uncategorized. Closed

To all practitioners: please take notice of a current email scam running rampant across the country, including Washington. The scam asks for your help in collecting a judgment. They offer you a very large percentage for doing very little work, by accepting payment on the judgment into your trust account, and then the scammers pressure attorneys into disbursing their agreed share of the funds before they are actually collected by the bank.

At least one attorney in Washington, apparently, has fallen victim to this, and is now looking at repaying the bank hundreds of thousands of dollars, and having a discussion with the bar association. Below is a sample email request by the scammers.

Always be very wary of any email from anyone you do not know. Never click on links in an email. If you are very certain of the source of the email, the best policy is to cut and paste links into your browser. Replying to potential scammers or spammers is only likely to increase your exposure.

Warm regards to all,
Mark Baumann

SAMPLE SCAM:

Dear Counsel.

My name is Linda Cheng. I am a contacting your firm in regards to a divorce settlement with my ex husband(Randy L. Cheng) who resides in your jurisdiction. I am currently on assignment in Japan. We had an out of court agreement for him to pay $350,450.00 plus legal fees. He has only paid me $50,000 since .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 payment from my ex-husband or litigate this matter if he fails to pay as promised.

Sincerely
Linda Cheng.

Scam. We've got a lot about the Delinquent Money Collection Scam at viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1578. It has caught a lot of US lawyers.
It started out as an alleged commercial debt, and this is a variant.

To: "undisclosed-recipients:"

You are only one of very many lawyers who received the email.

I have moved topic to this forum so that it is grouped with the other money collection scams.

As others have pointed out, the use of BCC (generally the recipient will be "undisclosed recipients" or will be someone else entirely) or a mass mailing program such as the bat! should be red flags. Whether you are a law firm or another kind of business (or even an individual), any time you are bcc'd on an email that is written as if it is a direct request to you, you should be suspicious.

The BCC function is very useful and is appropriate when sending email announcements or larger scale requests out, or even when copying you on an email to someone else, but the reason for the use of BCC would generally b obvious in the content of the email.

The letter here (and almost all 419 emails) is written to appear to be directed specifically and solely to you--the use of BCC is clearly not indicated here.

Keep in mind, though, that some scammers do focus on a smaller pool of potential victims and may take the time to send an email directly to you. The absence of a bcc should not be considered proof that something is not a scam.

I do work for a law firm. We get quite a few of these similar emails every week and i usually google search them to see if they are scams...9 times out of 10, someone has posted it on the internet so i tell my boss it's a scam but i have the task of verifying them in case one turns out to be legit....thanks guys....question, should i continue to post the scam emails i get on here just so other people can be aware??

btran, please do continue to post any such emails you receive. If they have already appeared in our forums here, it still doesn't hurt to add yours to the thread. Each example increases the chances of someone finding it through a search engine.

Thank you for what you have already posted. It may have alerted other law firms.

Please do post the scam emails here as it will warn others. Especially if an email is directed to your company alone and it looks fishy, we can have a look at it. It seems your company email address is going around so don't be surpriced if a scammer is sending a specific scam email to your company. Most scammers buy a list of email addresses to work with and some search the internet for them. Scammers are real opportunists and flexible.