TD Canada Trust 419 scam arrives in postal letters
November 28, 2022
On Monday, November 28, 2022, I fetched my mail and one letter caught my attention. It was a plain white envelope addressed to me by my name. The sender was simply the words "IBT ELECTION." It had a prepaid postmark from Canada Post, which is strange because I am in the USA. The enclosed letter was obviously printed from a scan on a black and white copy machine. The message it contained is what is known in the spam and scam trade as a Nigerian 419 scam. I will outline the gist of the letter below.
The upper left contained a black and white copy of a TD logo, followed by Canada Trust. It was dated November 22, 2022 and addressed me as "Dear (my name redacted)." The first paragraph was worded much like a typical Nigerian 419 scam going back to the early 2000s. It started off with this: "I am aware that this letter has come to you as a surprise as we have not met before or handled any business deal in the past. Nevertheless, I have contacted you with genuine intentions and I hope I can trust you with this inheritance opportunity which I explain below."
The second paragraph reads as follows:
"My name is MR. MATHIAS EDISON, an account manager with TD Canada Trust Bank, Ontario, Canada. I retrieved your contact address in my search for the next of kin to a deceased customer of our bank MR. GEO (redacted), a citizen of your country, who lived and died in London from Cardiac Arrest in the year 2012. Unfortunately, this customer died intestate leaving his bank account with an open beneficiary status." snip minutia
It ends the paragraph with the hook:
"I would like to present you to our bank as his next of kin to claim this dormant account worth $9.2 Million USD (Nine Million Two Hundred Thousand US Dollars)." the rest of his story is octopus ink meant to further rope in the reader and get them to respond to the email address at the end of the letter where professional followup scammers go to work getting the victim to pay advance fees to cover imaginary fees and bribes in the hopes of splitting this huge amount of money with the scammers.
The signature at the bottom is:
Sincerely
Mr. Mathias Edison
chicken scratch signature.
Email: [email protected]
Inheritance and investment scams are favorites with the lads from Lagos. They've been scamming people in other countries for centuries going back to the French Revolution with the Spanish Prisoner letter scam, and in modern times with the Nigerian Prince scam. You can read up on the details and history of these Nigerian 419 advance fee fraud scams on this Wikipedia page. The number 419 refers to Nigerian Penal Code 419, which deals with financial and advance fee fraud..
In conclusion, there is no such dormant account. You are not the beneficiary. You are a mark which the Nigerians sometimes refer to as Mugus (fools). If you're reading this you probably got a similar letter, or perhaps a similar email. Don't fall for it. Keep tabs on your elderly friends and relatives and mention this to them so they don't get scammed..
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