Random letter arrived saying dad is a beneficiary to someone we've never heard of

[user1478639495]

has anyone else had this and could advise? dad received a letter this week saying that he is entitled to part of a ladies estate, him and his brother except his brother passed earlier this year. We haven't heard of this woman's name before, I have googled the solicitors who sent the letter an all looks legit, I've been in touch via email and again everything seems to be ok BUT we have been caught with a scam before and are extremely nervous of things like this, the other issue is we have 6 weeks to act but the letter arrived almost 3 weeks after it was sent so we are already short on time. They want bank details (acc no sort code) and form of ID.

Part of me thinks well how else would you notify you and what more can I do to check it's legit? the other part of me is thinking its so random its got to be a scam?

Advice stories welcome tia

I hope it's real, but agree the time pressure sounds peculiar. Why six weeks; what's going to happen to the money after that time? It should be sitting safely in a holding account, it's not like a Black Friday deal! The testator isn't coming back to reclaim it.

Please follow PPs' advice to check with the SRA and, if legit, contacting the firm via their official number. Don't rely on the solicitors' website alone, websites can be fake.

Yes!
This happened to us a few years ago.
A cousin of my late Grandadi know he didn't even know he had.
About 100 beneficiaries and we ended up with £245 , my Brother and I as it goes on rank.
A real shock as per your own concerns, but it all checked out.

Why would your entitlement to the money end in a few weeks?

Not wanting a sort code 🚩
wanting you to act within 6 weeks 🚩
your father has been scammed before 🚩

when you emailed the solicitor- where did you get the email address from? The latter or the website?

This is a very typical scam. Please do not engage with them in any way. Once you respond, the scammers will keep pushing and try to put you under psychological pressure. Most importantly, do not provide any bank account or financial information.

Could be from a ‘heir hunters’ firm?

From my experience:
The solicitors / company checked out as legit.
The first letter was asking us to confirm if we were XYZ, Daughter of XYZ (deceased)
Cousin in same situation was contacted the same.
Other uncles were contacted the same.
The direct beneficiary was deceased Grandad and then in passed to children
My mum and aunt are deceased so thst portion passed to us / cousins.
Upon confirmation, further letters actually listed all contacted beneficiaries and spelled out there was an ongoing property sale.
It was all totally out of the blue as none of the names were remotely familiar bar our direct family and I know that my Grandad didnt know he had a relative in the next county.
Full process took a long time iirc.
Ended up with a cheque for £245.
Which means Grandads 'share' would have been £2500 ish.

Your letter is probably legit but don't expect a dispersement for many months.

Yes this happened to me. It was one of those heir hunter companies (called Hoopers) who locate distant relatives and their solicitors wrote to me. after being given my details by my sibling. It was entirely legitimate but the heir tracer company take a 30% cut to cover their expenses. You have to sign to agree to this, Still it was a small windfall and welcome.

I later recognised the deceased as young uncle F who had no direct descendents He was the son old uncle F who had been head gamekeeper on an aristocratic estate. The estate was subsequently broken up and sold and is well known in my home city. As a child I had visited the estate and grounds on several occasions. It was a fascinating piece of family history.

A caveat is that from getting the letter it can take upto a year before any money lands in your account. As well as probate the solicitors have to make exhaustive attempts to locate all heirs and this takes time. They have to take out an insurance which covers both them and the heirs in the case of another heir popping up at a later stage. Hence the expenses which the company has to undertake and which comprise part of its fee.

I would not give my bank details. I would travel to the place first and check it out.

A solicitor would introduce themselves and explain the inheritance. I can't see them asking for bank details at all. They would send a cheque I imagine but not until they have verified that your father is definitely the person mentioned in the will. They would have to go through due diligence for that.

Anything that tries to pressurize you into making a quick decision is usually a scam. Have they asked you for money to process this inheritance?

Yes they are common these companies, we get requests for info from them. They take a cut, as otherwise that money goes to the government. Friends DD got one. Not sure how much she got.

My dad had similar and it was legit. But I cant remember them asking for a bank account number. So I would be cautious!

Is the solicitor office close enough to visit in person? It does seem rather suspicious that they ask for DH bank details, when I was a beneficiary I had to prove my ID in the first instance. Do you have a solicitor of your own to approach for advice? My DS needed to prove her ID when she was contacted by a solicitor 200 miles away, travelling was not an option so she was able to use her own solicitor for proof of ID.
A time constraint does make this look suspicious though.

Me and my brothers were contacted out of the blue about a very distant relative we'd never heard of. She'd died without a will and an heir hunter was looking for her family. We had a few exciting weeks waiting to hear the outcome. He did find a few even more distant relatives but it turned out she was very poor and we just got a couple of hundred pounds each. So, yes, it does happen. I guess you can check that the solicitor is genuine and it would then be ok to give them your bank details, but you're right to be wary.

As I recall I was sent a cheque eventually for about £2000. Not a fortune but still welcome. I was also sent at intervals updates to say what was happening which is how I know about the insurance policy. The heir hunters company we dealt with Hoopers is a legtit and long established one. As other posters have suggested I would do due diligence and check out how many heirs there are involved. Their is a hierarchy or descent according to which payments are made. For example my siblings sons did not get anything.

You can also do this research yourself without signing up with the company but its probably not worth the hassle.

Seek advice from your father’s bank.

Don’t hand over ID and/or bank details without due diligence. As others have said, if he’s been scammed before the risk is higher AAs details are sold on.

There should be no time pressure if it’s an estate. However, heir hunters often try to beat each other to sign people up. So could be that.

As others have said, don’t assume a website (or calling the number on it) is legit. It’s easy enough to set up a fake website and divert a number to a mobile,

Check if the solicitor is SRA listed and check on Google street view for an office with signage at that address.

A reputable firm can send a check.

Can you post the name or address of the solicitor on here and someone will know of them - though I guess it is in London so that's less likely

I'd add that we had a time constraint. Whoever is looking for possible beneficiaries has to put a deadline on the search - they can't keep looking forever. They take a small cut of the money themselves for doing the work. (It would have been almost impossible for us to know this person had died or that she was distantly related. so we'd have got nothing if the heir hunter hadn't traced us.)

We had a letter like this and it wasn’t a scam. Ended up getting over £3k. The people at the top of the chain got £200k. There was a letter which showed how it was all worked out.

But the whole process took over two years to actually get the money as they had to go through the process with everyone who was a beneficiary.

I’d be wary of the urgency to give bank details. Can you ring them? Also, if you have a sibling, they should have got a letter too.

I work in pensions and we issue similar letters. Monies due to a deceased person or estate have to be paid to someone. If there’s no living known family, the closest living relatives will usually inherit. We issue a letter requesting ID (so we can run an online identity check to verify we are paying the correct person) and bank details to make payment. Some companies may request a bank statement to ensure the address ties in with the identity check. Before we request these documents, we establish contact with the beneficiary so they know how the funds have come about or how they have been traded.

Yes we had this. We were contacted by a firm that had determined that my DH’s mother was entitled to assets under a relative’s estate. Information about unclaimed estates is publicly available somewhere, but you have to know where to look. This is what this firm does as a service. They ended up filing a claim on our behalf and took a commission. It was all legitimate. But like you OP, we were sceptical at first. Before going ahead we researched the firm, and spoke with them on the phone and checked credentials. This is a known practice called “heir hunting” I believe.

I had this once. It was a relative id never heard of and because she'd never had children, I ended up with a share, along with some other family members.
Felt very odd to get money from someone I'd never met so I ended up giving it to charity!

This happened to my MIL. Like a previous poster said, from the first contact from a solicitor, it took years (3 or 4) to actually get any money. It was a fairly small estate and loads of potential beneficiaries and she ended up with about 5k.

This happened to my mum and it did turn out to be legitimate. She ended up with £600. It took about a year to pay out and they sent a cheque.