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Someone contacted me and said that someone with a similar last name died and left me a large amount of money. He gave me information and forms from a bank, and other pertinent information.
I then got a message that there is fee and that I need to send it before any money could be released to me. I checked and his office really exists but I think he just trying to pull a fast one.
What should I do?
If I had a legitimate reason to give to you $100,000 with a $500 fee, I would ask you if it is okay to take the $500 out of the $100,000, and if you agree, I'd pay you $99,500 without any cost for you.
Someone who wants to give you money doesn't ask for fees, they just deduct any cost from the money they give you. Same for lotteries, inheritances, tax returns, forgotten bank accounts and so on.
This is a scam.
If it were a legitimate case of them recovering money for you for a percentage, then they would be working it in a different direction. Asking for a "fee" puts this very much in suspicious scam territory.
Look up the supposed bank online (do NOT use whatever links or contact information were sent to you), contact them, and ask if the person you're talking to is working with/for them. Tell them you're working probate for your uncle, and ask them to confirm information based on what you've been sent. They won't be able to release much, but they should be able to tell you if you're being scammed or not.
In a genuine probate case the executor of the estate will not ask beneficiaries for money. The executor has a duty to identify the beneficiaries of the will and notify them, usually before the will is probated.
There is the possibility, however, that the will has been probated and the beneficiary has not been found or the person died intestate. In this situation, there are people who will try to broker the situation by making guesses who the beneficiary might be. These people are called "heir hunters". That might be the situation here.
However, just because the estate is real doesn't mean you are the beneficiary. It is possible that the fee hunter just mailed everyone with the same name of the missing beneficiary, which could be 100 people. Maybe one of them is the true beneficiary, maybe none of them are. If you pay him $500, he will probably just refer you to the executor. In the slight chance that you are the real beneficiary, then it is your lucky day. It is far more likely that you have no relation to the deceased and the executor will determine that and inform you.
If you want to pursue the case, you can start searching through unclaimed inheritance databases. Two of the provinces, Alberta and Quebec, have a comprehensive consolidated database of unclaimed inheritances. Unfortunately, the other provinces are harder to research, but there is a guide to how to do it.
In all probability, however, you are not the heir. If you were definitely the heir, the heir hunter would have given you a much more personalized letter and would have demanded more money, as much as 20% of the inheritance. Since he only asked for $500 it means it is probably just a random name match and nothing more.
When there is an inheritance, then any costs associated with executing the inheritance are taken from the estate of the deceased person.
So when you are supposed to receive an inheritance, and a fee needs to be paid in order to get that inheritance to you, then that fee would be paid from the estate and you would receive your share of the remaining money. It's the duty of the executor of the inheritance to take care of these formalities.
So yes, this is an advance-fee scam.
This question is also tagged as taxes. Depending on where you live and what grade of relation you had, you might or might not have to pay inheritance tax. Depending on country, there are two options: Either the inheritance tax is paid from the estate, and it's the executors duty to do so (A comment claims that Canada is such a country). Or the inheritance tax is paid by the receiver. In the latter case you would list your inheritance in your next tax return and then you get a tax bill from your national taxation bureau. Consult your local inheritance tax laws or ask a tax consultant for details.
There is a 99% probability that this is a scam. But just for piece of mind, confirm with your parents or other family members if there is fact a long lost "uncle" who died in Canada. If they say yes, then you can make a few more calls and attempt to collect the inheritance directly, because it's also possible there is actually inheritance, but the person who contacted you is also a scammer.
If someone left you a large amount of money, they would not simply send you an email saying "Send me a fee and I'll send it to you." Any large sum of money would have a lot of bureaucracy attached. If they were smart, there would be a trust or some other body in place and any contact they had with you would probably be through lawyers. If they were not as smart, they would have left it in a will and you would still have lawyers contacting you, possibly with IRS or other government officials backing them up and wanting a piece of the pie in the form of taxes. They would not simply ask you to pay a fee and then wire you a bunch of money. Most governments won't let someone just hand off a "large amount of money." If there's no red tape, it's probably not official.
Sounds like the well known, classic 419 scam:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam
However as one of the answers mentions, double check if there is really an inheritance and you're not being scammed on the claim by a third party.
