Is This A Scam? Woman added me on LinkedIn first, then e-mailed offering me millions of dollars [duplicate]
Yes.  If you reply back, they'll confirm that Uncle Alex did indeed leave you $7 million, and you just need to send them a few thousand dollars for taxes and estate fees and then they'll wire you the money.  And then there'll be customs fees.  And then more taxes.  And of course, there will be separate import fees.  And so on until you run out of money. It is absolutely a scam.  Anyone who tells you they can give you a large amount of money for free is trying to scam you.  Additional warning signs include: "This is totally a scam. I didn't read the whole thing. Didn't need to after I read ""abandoned sum of 22.5 million"" which implied part of it was yours to take after you do something for them.. Logically speaking.. No stranger would disclose this to you." "In general,  if you think something even MIGHT be a scam, the answer is""yes""."
"How can I say this more clearly? SCAM, SCAM, SCAM! This is another one of the oldest scams out there, where you've won a prize or an inheritance has come in, and all you have to do is pay the taxes on it to claim it. Don't be a sucker!  Ask yourself why the government couldn't (and wouldn't) just take the taxes due out of the funds they have and give the rest to the person they belong to?  Wouldn't that be the smartest and easiest thing to do? As an example, let's say that you have $1,000 that belongs to me, and I owe you $100.  Would you tell me to pay you the $100 and then you'll give me the $1,000 or would you take the $100 I owe you out of the $1,000 and give me the remaining $900? The fact this is someone you know from the internet and they want your ""help"" to claim their money should tell you how much of a scam this is. Stop talking to this person, and don't tell them anything personal about you.  They are scam artists, and whatever you tell them could be used to steal your identity or take your money. Be careful, my friend!" I work for Businessfriend and would love to answer these questions. Now mind you, we are in beta, so we don't expect the site to work perfectly yet, but I do hope you guys explore it. We see our selves very different from Linkedin, matter of fact we don't compare ourselves to Linkedin at all. Our site does not stop at networking, we provide common business utilities behind a social ecosystem to ideally improve productivity at work. Our tools consist of a calendar, to do list, chat (instant message), and plenty more. I went ahead and set up a demo account for you guys to use if you are interested, because this is set up with my own email I am going to only leave it live for a week. The login is Email: p.diehl@businessfriend.com Password: Password123. I have added 3 Businessfriend team members to the contacts so you can talk to us directly and let us know what you think. You will be connected with Philip Diehl (me), Nick Alesi, and Rob Rosales. Enjoy! -Phil "Just tired of the bullshit postings stating ""Make $$$ NOW if you know Java or C# and have government clearance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'  LinkedIn is on par with craigslist - just different presentation.  Some company that wanted to hire me decided to make me a LinkedIn profile.  I told them to fuck off - intrusive assholes." "So Linda/Josie's initial plan was to have your dad pay money to (supposedly) help her get the gold chest. After he would have paid, there would have been another complication, and more yet (someone to bribe, a plane ticket to buy, transport to arrange, customs to handle, whatever, the list would last as long as there's money to take). Even if he does not have much money, the appeal of his share of the treasure could have been enough to tempt him to spend money he can't, or borrow, etc. Once ""she"" found out that he doesn't have any money and/or is apparently not willing to send any, ""she"" switched to a different scam: she would send him a large check, have him deposit it on his bank account, transfer most of the money (minus his generous share) to ""her"". Once the money is irreversibly transferred, the check will bounce. End result: 0 in the account before the transaction, minus a lot afterwards. It's quite simple: if an e-mail from a perfect stranger includes any of the following keywords, it's a scam:" "Let me guess, it's a fairly large amount of money, a few thousand at least. This is a scam. This is a variation on the many fake check scams out there. You deposit the check and you think it ""cleared"" your bank, but it didn't clear. A clever fake check can take a couple weeks to bounce and the bank will demand the money back. Any money you wire back to the fraudster in the meantime will be lost forever." I agree with you: it sounds like a scam. Those terms are too good to be true.  Online, it is too easy to pretend to be someone you are not. When choosing a bank to work with, you need to be confident of its legitimacy. Make sure you have heard of it someplace other than their own website and can trust it. In this case, this isn't even a bank; it is just an individual stranger. I can't see how this could possibly be legitimate.  With the information that they are asking for, they could potentially impersonate you and steal your money. I would stay away from this. I work for Businessfriend and would love to answer these questions. Now mind you, we are in beta, so we don't expect the site to work perfectly yet, but I do hope you guys explore it. We see our selves very different from Linkedin, matter of fact we don't compare ourselves to Linkedin at all. Our site does not stop at networking, we provide common business utilities behind a social ecosystem to ideally improve productivity at work. Our tools consist of a calendar, to do list, chat (instant message), and plenty more. I went ahead and set up a demo account for you guys to use if you are interested, because this is set up with my own email I am going to only leave it live for a week. The login is Email: p.diehl@businessfriend.com Password: Password123. I have added 3 Businessfriend team members to the contacts so you can talk to us directly and let us know what you think. You will be connected with Philip Diehl (me), Nick Alesi, and Rob Rosales. Enjoy! -Phil I know people who work in the gulf and most contracts are of the 14 days on/ 14 days (or so) off flavor. I've never heard of someone being onboard a ship or platform for a year. I bet this is a scam.