Don’t fall for this old scam

Don’t fall for it.

Another scam is doing the rounds in Horowhenua. This one uses time-honoured means of contacting people: a letter posted to a home address and aimed at elderly folk.

The writer of the letter claims to work for a London finance company called Barclays Capital Finance, London. This company does not exist. The letter lists a name, phone and fax number, no address and is not on an official letterhead, which should be a warning sign.

The envelope lists a return address and name, which is not the name of the letter writer and the postal code is incorrect.

The writer claims he has discovered 12m British pounds belonging to someone who has your last name and initials.

This person has died a few years ago, leaving no will or an heir, he says. Every effort made to track down any member of his family has since failed.

The writer offer to act as a middleman as long as you are prepared to pretend to be related to the deceased.

He says no-one else in his company has access to the account and if you do not respond quickly the company will grab the money for its shareholders.

He tells the recipient of the letter to keep this information secret, because of his position in the office . . . and he wants you to email him a copy of the letter back to him. Do not respond to this. A variation of this letter or email has been doing the rounds for years and is fake.

A Levin man recently received this letter and his wife said he was planning to respond to it when she found out about it.

They want to let the community know these letters have been arriving in town lately.