# Fraser and Fraser, scam or not?



## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

OK, I get about a dozen scam emails a week from Nigerian Princes, Indonesian oil companies, Grieving widows, etc. I usually just delete them.

The latest is from the firm Of Fraser and Fraser from a Robert Barratt. This one had a ring of truth to it so I did a little research on it. The firm actually exists and does genealogical searches for lost heirs. I found legitimate news sources that confirms that the firm exists. They also mention that the firm charges exorbitant fees (40%) to reunite heirs with their rightful inheritances. It appears that they take their fee as a cut of any actual money received and do not charge an upfront fee.

Any insights on this?


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## Oxankle (Jun 20, 2003)

Is it inheritance or unclaimed funds? Every state has an unclaimed funds list; people forget about small bank accounts, profit sharing, utility deposits. All these must be paid to the state and if the owner is never found the state gets the money. 

Check your state unclaimed funds department, maybe even a former address in another state?


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

They seem to do more genealogical type things. Finding lost heirs after several generations. They are based in London. Here is a link to an article about them.

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2010/02/fraser-fraser-will-help-you-ge.html


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## plowjockey (Aug 18, 2008)

Seems pretty simple.

If you are lazy, let them find the money (if any) and give them the 40%.

or, do the work your self and collect 100% (before taxes).

If people think they are "ripping you off", for 40%, since they don't charge up-front fees, how many "heir" leads, that they spend their own time and money researching, turn to to be worthless duds?

Plenty, I would guess.


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## mypatriotsupply (Jan 21, 2009)

I know a PI and asked him about this. He said that any firm like that, if they had tracked you down after doing their due diligence to make sure they had the right person, would contact you by phone or snail mail. It is actually quite simple for agencies such as this to find your information, even if it is unpublished and you're virtually nonexistent on paper. 

Sounds like it could be a sophisticated scam. Or they are definitely not sophisticated in their research and not worth the 40%. 

I would say do your own digging, and if nothing comes up in your searches at least you will have learned some things about your family tree.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

plowjockey said:


> Seems pretty simple.
> 
> If you are lazy, let them find the money (if any) and give them the 40%.
> 
> or, do the work your self and collect 100% (before taxes).


I don't know if it is necessarily laziness, considering that my genealogy goes back to Adam and my immediate ancestors (300 years) come from at least 6 different countries. Am I to visit every courthouse in Europe to discover that my uncle Ragnar left me an iron grub hoe.......?


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

tinknal said:


> The latest is from the firm Of Fraser and Fraser from a Robert Barratt. This one had a ring of truth to it so I did a little research on it. The firm actually exists and does genealogical searches for lost heirs. I found legitimate news sources that confirms that the firm exists. They also mention that the firm charges exorbitant fees (40%) to reunite heirs with their rightful inheritances. It appears that they take their fee as a cut of any actual money received and do not charge an upfront fee.
> 
> Any insights on this?


What does this law firm want with you in particular?


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## plowjockey (Aug 18, 2008)

> Originally Posted by plowjockey
> Seems pretty simple.
> 
> If you are lazy, let them find the money (if any) and give them the 40%.
> ...





tinknal said:


> I don't know if it is necessarily laziness, considering that my genealogy goes back to Adam and my immediate ancestors (300 years) come from at least 6 different countries. *Am I to visit every courthouse in Europe to discover that my uncle Ragnar left me an iron grub hoe......*.?


That's they are willing to do - for 40% of the value of that hoe, which if it is 300 years old, might be worth something.


They are offering a service that costs them plenty to research , but nothing to the heir, unless there is some money to collect and then they want a healthy cut. Sounds fair to me.

Some laws want to limit their take to 10%, but that will probably drive them out of business.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

plowjockey said:


> That's they are willing to do - for 40% of the value of that hoe, which if it is 300 years old, might be worth something.
> 
> 
> They are offering a service that costs them plenty to research , but nothing to the heir, unless there is some money to collect and then they want a healthy cut. Sounds fair to me.
> ...


Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining over any potential fees, I just want to know if the email is on the up and up.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Nevada said:


> What does this law firm want with you in particular?


Here is the email. There are some grammatical errors, and I never sent them an email, which is enough to set off my BS detector plus they never address me by name, but the email addy looks like the legitimate one for this firm.

Hello There,

I am Robert Barratt Senior Researcher at fraser and fraser,Fraser is one of the world's largest firms of professional Genealogists and Probate Researchers with a worldwide network of correspondents complementing its European offices. We are the only UK probate firm with both a qualified solicitor and a chartered building surveyor in-house and have been recognised by public trustees, solicitors and probate courts as experts in probate research for over 85 years.

I came across your email and i was wondering if you keep your options open for making some extra income.You dont know me and i won't insult you by asking you to trust me, but if you are interested in this venture please get back to me.

Robert Barratt
Senior Researcher
Fraser & Fraser
Email: [email protected]


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

tinknal said:


> Robert Barratt
> Senior Researcher
> Fraser & Fraser
> Email: [email protected]


The domain for that email address (lostkin.co.cc) does not exist, and would be for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands anyway. That's out near Indonesia. It's doubtful that a British law firm would use such an address, even if the domain did exist. Moreover, the bogus email address domain is similar to their domain (lostkin.co.uk), probably in an attempt to fool you into thinking it was their actual domain.

If you inspect the email header you'll almost certainly find the "reply to" address to be something totally different, probably a yahoo or hotmail account.

The bogus email domain should make you extremely skeptical that the solicitation is legit, particularly since it looks similar to their real domain. I'm as sure as I can be that this is a scam, but I admit that it's a lot more sophisticated than we usually see. A lot of people will fall for it.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Thanks Nevada, I figured as much. It was convincing but the grammar and spelling pretty much got my radar going.


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## plowjockey (Aug 18, 2008)

tinknal said:


> Here is the email. There are some grammatical errors, and I never sent them an email, which is enough to set off my BS detector plus they never address me by name, but the email addy looks like the legitimate one for this firm.
> 
> Hello There,
> 
> ...


It makes sense now.

Maybe the scammers are using a "ligitimate" inheritance recovery firm, to maybe get a bank account number or up-front fee.

Nobody ever accused the scammers, of not being not creative.


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## Cash (Apr 24, 2007)

A legitimate asset recovery firm would never, ever contact you by email. 

What you might want to do is look up the address of the real Fraser and Fraser and forward this to them to see what they say.


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## mypatriotsupply (Jan 21, 2009)

Cash said:


> A legitimate asset recovery firm would never, ever contact you by email.
> 
> What you might want to do is look up the address of the real Fraser and Fraser and forward this to them to see what they say.


Agreed


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

plowjockey said:


> It makes sense now.
> 
> Maybe the scammers are using a "ligitimate" inheritance recovery firm, to maybe get a bank account number or up-front fee.
> 
> Nobody ever accused the scammers, of not being not creative.


Yes. The interesting thing here is that they used the name of a legitimate business and the name of an actual person associated with that company.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

plowjockey said:


> It makes sense now.
> 
> Maybe the scammers are using a "ligitimate" inheritance recovery firm, to maybe get a bank account number or up-front fee.
> 
> Nobody ever accused the scammers, of not being not creative.


My guess would be that the follow-up email would be very similar to the classic Nigerian scam letter.

Most likely they will tell you that their law firm has located an heir in the USA, so they want to transfer the inheritance into this country for disbursement. They will probably offer a handsome commission (usually a few hundred thousand, or more) if you allow them to use your US bank account as a portal for those funds, and they'll promise that you'll risk nothing.

The scam isn't usually to drain your bank account. The problems with them doing that is that bank transfers are too traceable, and they probably can't talk the bank into cooperating anyway. It does happen occasionally, but they have other ways to get money from people they scam.

The scam is normally for up-front fees, as you suggested. They'll tell you that they are ready to transfer the funds into your bank account, but that they need a wire fee or something similar. In the hope of getting a $250,000 commission, a lot of people will send them a $100 or $200 wire fee. Of course there will be a request for another nominal fee as soon as they get the wire fee funds from you.


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