Plaintiffs employment lawyers beware. There is a new email scam targeting employment lawyers that is a variant on the old “Nigerian prince” scam. For those not familiar, the “Nigerian prince” scam goes something like this: the mark is contacted via email by someone claiming to represent a Nigerian prince in need of collecting or transferring some ridiculous amount of money in U.S. dollars. It just so happens that all the scammer needs is for the target, who is completely random and unaffiliated with the prince or his henchmen, to open a bank account and deposit their own money into the account. Then, once the target jumps through some additional hoops, he/she can withdraw the millions upon millions of dollars due the Nigerian prince and receive a cut of the money.

The variations on the scam can range from being an unsuspecting lottery winner to brokering a sales transaction on behalf of a foreign national. In almost every instance of the scam, there are scant details presented, spelling and grammatical errors, vague references to the law in “your jurisdiction” and so on. Scammers have gotten more sophisticated over the years and the scam eventually evolved into targeting lawyers. Seeking to capitalize on lawyers looking to make a quick buck, the scammers will typically ask for assistance with a business transaction such as the following email received by our office: