The Signs of a Scam

When you receive a message, usually an email or via Facebook, from someone pretending to work for a law firm like Alexander JLO Solicitors here are some easy questions to ask yourself:

1. Check the web-site of the law firm the sender of the message pretends to work for. Is his name shown as one of the lawyers? Is the telephone number the same as the number on the message you received?
2. What telephone number is shown on the message you received? Does it start with the digits 07 or +44 7. This is a sure sign something is wrong. These are numbers reserved for UK mobile phones (cell phones) Anyone can buy a UK mobile number and pretend to be in the UK even if they reside or do business from outside the UK. In this case it means the person using the number is trying to pretend he is in the UK when he isn't. Ask yourself why should a lawyer not use his office phone number? Answer because he is not working for that law firm!
3. And most important - what email address has the person contacting you asked you to use in order to get back to him? Compare that email address with the email address of the firm of lawyers found on the web-site (in the case of Alexander JLO Solicitors info@london-law.co.uk or [the name of the lawyer]@london-law.co.uk.
4. The scam artist will never use the business email address of the firm he pretends to be associated with (otherwise he'd never see your message in reply). He will have set up his own private email address with (usually in our experience) a yahoo or a gmail account. A genuine lawyer would never use his or her private email account for business; they would use the business email account!

Next time I will make some suggestions on what to do when you receive these emails