Fax sent to people across the United States for false inheritance scam. Miskin Law firm website copied by con artists.
On the morning of September 3, 2020, the staff of Miskin Law firm in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada began their day surprised by phones calls, website contacts, voice messages and emails from over 100 individuals who suspected they were victims of a scam. An unknown number of other people did not contact the real Miskin Law firm, but instead called or emailed phone numbers and email addresses of the schemers pretending to be Miskin Law.
A person or persons pretending to be lawyer Murray Miskin, of Miskin Law Professional Corporation, set up a copy of the real Miskin Law website, calling itself MiskinLLP, using different phone numbers and email addresses for people to contact them instead of the real Miskin Law firm. They then faxed a letter under the name of Murray Miskin with the false contact information. That letter was the same in every instance offering to help the recipient recover ten million US dollars from an account of a deceased person who may be related to them. The letter offered to do the work to get the money in exchange for a fee of 45% of it. The only variation in the letters was that the deceased’s last name in every letter was the same as the letter recipient.
The law firm staff scrambled to respond to everyone who contacted them to let them know that it was not a legitimate letter and they should not respond. One person who contacted Miskin Law also responded to the letter and was told that the law firm would need to prepare an affidavit to proceed with their claim for the money. “I suspect that at some point when someone felt they were close to being paid they would be asked to send the scammers money to help get funds released. That is how this classic “phishing” scheme usually works” said the real Murray Miskin. Mr. Miskin went on to warn the public of these schemes generally. “They prey on people’s greed in an effort to get their victim to be part of something fraudulent, and then instead of rewarding them for helping with the fraud, they steal from those who want to get rich.”
The Miskin Law firm is now warning of the scheme on its website, in social media and everywhere else they can. Contacts from people receiving the letter are continuing. Miskin Law is working to get the false website removed. At Miskin’s request police are involved as are the Law Society of Ontario who monitor lawyer impersonation attempts.
