What is the “Foreign Beneficiary” email scam

The “Foreign Beneficiary” email is a scam that promises an absurd amount of money to the recipient if they agree to help move it from a bank. The sender claims to be Paul Wilson, the director of commercial banking at NatWest, and promises 40% of £18.3 million if they help move the funds out of a deceased person’s bank account. The contents of the email are obviously fake, and the sender is trying to phish personal information as well as steal money.

 

 

These types of scam emails have a very distinct characteristic, which is promises of millions of dollars if the recipients agree to help with something. The emails are essentially a modern version of the Spanish Prisoner scam, which was quite common in the late 18th century. The way those scams worked back in the day was scammers contacted people asking for help to smuggle wealthy individuals from a prison in Spain. Scammers would ask for money from potential victims to supposedly bribe the guards. In exchange, they were promised a lot of money. People who gave away their money would not receive anything in return. Nowadays, these scams work in a similar fashion but have become much more common. Scammers still promise millions of dollars but users first need to send money.

The sender of this particular email claims to be Paul Wilson, the director of commercial banking at NatWest. They claim that there is an account with a balance of “£18.300,000 00” that belongs to someone who passed away in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. Supposedly, there is no immediate family to claim the funds and the account has gone unnoticed by the bank, which supposedly gave the director the idea to claim the funds. However, they claim to need a foreigner’s help. In exchange, they promise 40% of the money. Those interested are asked to reply to pulwilson44@hotmail.com with their full name, contact address, and phone number.

In order to make the email at least a little bit more credible the scammers use names of actual people. Paul Wilson is a real person, and he does hold that position in the NatWest Bank. If more gullible users try to Google the person, they will see results pointing to the sender being a real person. It goes without saying that the real Paul Wilson is in no way involved in this, his name is simply used to scam people.

The full contents of the “Foreign Beneficiary” email scam are below.

Subject: From Mr. Paul Wilson

From Mr. Paul Wilson
Email: pulwilson44@hotmail.com

My name is Mr. Paul Wilson, NatWest, Director of Commercial Banking, Chelmsford & Romford. United Kingdom. Being a top executive at NATWEST, I discovered a Numbered account with a credit balance of £18.300,000 00 British Pounds plus accumulated interest, which belongs to an American multi-millionaire Crude oil Merchant Mr. David Watkins, who was a victim of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Until now, nobody knows about his bank account with NatWest Bank and my further investigation proved that the deceased immediate family also died in the tragedy.

With my position at the bank, I have all access, secret details and necessary contacts for claim of the funds without any hitch. But due to the sensitive nature of my job, I need a foreigner to HELP claim the funds, my position as a civil servant and as a staff of the bank does not permit me or my relatives to claim this funds. Therefore I contact you as a foreigner to arrange the transfer of this fund out of this account before our next auditing because If our bank management discover that this account has been latent for these long, it will be frozen and the money will be returned to the bank treasury, as unclaimed public funds. Therefore, I want you to stand as the “Foreign Beneficiary”, and I assure you of a perfect transfer strategy that will be placed in your name legally, so that nobody will suspect your claims.

For your involvement in this deal, you are entitled to 40% of the total amount transferred to your bank account and I will count on your sense of secrecy in order to avoid risky exposure of this deal. Upon consideration of the offer, Kindly provide me with your full name, contact address and your direct telephone/fax number, to enable me re-profile the fund to your name as the heir beneficiary and guide your communication with the bank for onward release and transfer of the fund to your bank account. Considering the sensitivity nature and magnitude of this project,i ask your reply to my private Email: pulwilson44@hotmail.com

Thanking you in anticipation for your prompt response.

Best Regards,

Mr. Paul Wilson,
NatWest Bank Plc.
Director Commercial Banking,
Chelmsford & Romford.

If users engage with the scammers and reply, they will eventually be asked to provide a lot of their personal information. Scammers will try to phish information via several emails, first asking for general information like full name, phone number, and home address, and later move on to request more sensitive information. If scammers realize they have a potential victim engaging with them, they will try to establish some trust to make the victim even more susceptible.

If malicious actors are successful in phishing users’ personal information, they usually sell it to other cybercriminals. Personal information is in high demand because it allows cybercriminals to perform sophisticated and targeted attacks. Users are much more likely to engage when they are contacted by someone who addresses them by their name and knows other information, so there is a higher chance of success.

While phishing personal information is important, the main objective of these scam emails is money. The emails do not initially mention this but users who engage will eventually be asked to send some money. Scammers will give all kinds of reasons for why they may need the money. For example, they may claim that some kind of problem has arisen with the transfer, and money is necessary to fix it. The reasons don’t make much sense if you think with a clear head but if trust has already been established with the recipient, they’re more likely to send the requested money.

It’s worth mentioning that emails promising money are always scams, particularly ones that promise absurd amounts like 40% of £18.3 million. Users don’t even need to pay close attention to the email to determine that it’s a scam because the contents are completely ridiculous.

These types of email scams have been around for decades, and it’s difficult to imagine that users can still fall victim to them. However, these scam campaigns don’t require a lot of effort and resources so malicious groups may be running them in the background while doing other malicious activities.

If users have engaged with cyber criminals and sent their personal information, they need to be very careful with any kind of unsolicited contact (emails, phone calls, etc.) in the future. Unfortunately, if users have transferred money, it’s impossible to get it back. If users have provided their payment card information, they need to immediately contact their banks to cancel the cards.