Careful with Scammers Posing as Spanish Lawyers
Within the last year we’ve seen an alarming increase in the number of queries regarding the legitimacy of certain Spanish law firms and lawyers. These companies are in fact non-existent and act only as shelter companies devised to fleece foreigners offering them dubious legal services often related to some murky financial interest, which is in the end nothing but some sort of advance fee fraud (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud). Foreigners should be well advised that these scammers pass themselves off as legitimate Spanish law firms and lawyers. They prey exclusively on foreigners and are in fact not even Spanish themselves. Their command of English is very good.
Spanish lawyers belong to one of the numerous Bar Associations that sprawl throughout Spain. There are a total of 83. Every lawyer member of a BA will have a registered number. It is very easy to check in less than a minute if a Spanish lawyer is legitimate, providing he is in fact registered of course.
These fraudsters will always contact you to offer legal assistance in some service of which you by chance are the sole lucky beneficiary. The potential reward to reap is huge (hundreds of thousands if not millions) in exchange of a reasonable legal fee which in comparison doesn’t seem like much. The preffered contact method is email (which they may follow up by ordinary post), and they will offer you either of the following legal “services”:
- Letting you know that after a long and winding investigation it has surfaced that you are the sole live beneficiary of a considerable Spanish inheritance from some distant relative you had in Spain (unbeknown to you) that has sadly passed away.
- Offering you to join group actions to recover deposits from bogus resale time share companies in ongoing court proceedings (Reclaim Certificates (http://www NULL.thisismoney NULL.co NULL.uk/news/columnists/article NULL.html?in_article_id=401923&in_page_id=19&in_author_id=5)).
- Notifying you that you have won the Spanish Lottery (despite never having played it) or that you have been selected in a random draw and are now the lucky beneficiary of a special promotion from the generous Spanish Lotto Administration.
- Contacting you regarding using your bank account, in exchange of a sizeable commission, for some million dollar bank transfer with origin in some dodgy place in Africa. This is known as the Nigerian Letters.
- Offer to assist you in the verification and payment of unclaimed funds located in Spain of which you happen to be the only beneficiary.
An example of enquiries about such bogus firms are the following:
- Martinez e Beneficio (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/forums/showthread NULL.php?t=117)
- Alberto Ganez Y Socio (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/forums/showthread NULL.php?t=155)
- Perez, Gonzalez and Associates (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/forums/showthread NULL.php?t=97) & Perez, Carrera and Associates (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/forums/showthread NULL.php?t=97)
Our recommendation, as always, is to never ever pay moneys upfront if you have the slightest suspicion about the legitimicay of the people you are dealing with.
We have compiled a list of bogus law firms (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/forums/showthread NULL.php?t=382)which is continously updated.
Other interesting related links:
- Protecting Yourself from Pyramid or “Ponzi” Schemes – 21st February 2009
- Fraudulent sell of shares from Spain – Boiler rooms (http://www NULL.fsa NULL.gov NULL.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas NULL.shtml) UK FSA’s link.
- Timeshare resellers: Be careful! (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/articles/showArticle/timeshare-reselling-scam) – 23rd of August 2001
- Lottery Fraud: Yet Another Scam (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/articles/showArticle/gordo-sweepstakes-scam) – 24th September 2001
- Is the ‘El Gordo Lottery Sweepstake Company’ a genuine company? (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/questions/showQuestion/133-Is-the-%27El-Gordo-Lottery-Sweepstake-Company%27-a-genuine--company-)
- European Mediation Limited (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/forums/showthread NULL.php?t=77)
- Bogus Holiday Club Membership (mostly in Canaries) (http://www NULL.marbella-lawyers NULL.com/forums/showthread NULL.php?t=365)
Add this one to the list:
Barrister: Mrs. Carmen Castel Cruz
Gils Abogados Associates
Valencia, Spain.
She has U.S. $ 13.3 Mill. waiting for me in a trunk!
Gracefully she will share it 50/50 with me.
How stupid do these people think one is?!?
Complete with Tel. no., email address and address, most likely phoney.
Is it not possible to shut these fraudsters down and lock them up at Guantanamo Bay?
Interesting. Is there anything that CAN’T be Googled? We received a letter (through regular mail) from a Gomez Garrido Abogados Logrono. He gave us a telephone number, an e-mail address and even a website: http://www.gomezgarrido.com (http://www NULL.gomezgarrido NULL.com) He claims that a he is a Spanish attorney to a lond-dead client, that he’s tried to track down the next of kin but couldn’t and that he will split 10 1/2 million Euros with us if we sign a form stating that we are the next of kin. What ‘Mr. Gomez’ doesn’t know is that my grandfather actually did die in Spain and that he was a business man (who went bankrupt shortly before his death), so when we first received this letter we thought “Oh my god, could this be true? Did my grandfather have a large sum of money stashed in a Spanish bank?” It all seemed a bit sketchy, especially because he got my grandfather’s last name and first initial right, but completely missed the mark on his actual first name. Must have gotten his name and initial out of some death registry or something. So, I Googled it and sure enough found your Scam Alert website. Thank god! The company website he listed (as above) looks TOTALLY legit. I’ve got to say they will go to great lengths to make it look like they are legitimate.
we got the same letter yesterday in Australia from Gomez Garrido, as did my parents in Australia from the same company for $10.5M but linked to my family surname.
i also checked the company website and noted the email address in the letter is spelt gomes and on the website is spelt gomez. For this reason I thought this one may actually be a legit website, but the scammer is just trying to catch the people emailing them back via the address they leave on the letter.
The envelope had spanish postage stamps on it and was stamped as being sent from Valencia (Correos CTA Valencia 19/4/12-16)
I got sent the letter and he( Gomez Garrido) even rang me in Australia from Spain.He was very articulate and claimed the Spanish authorities would have got him by now if he was not legitimate. He made lot of references to the law and for a scam its very convincing. As usual if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true!
Received a letter in Toronto from Barrister George Green of Merit Abogados Madrid Spain. He claimed that he is looking for his late client next of kin who died with his family during their short holiday in Myanmar Burma in May, 2008 during the Cyclone Nargis. Leaving a 8.8M unclaimed inheritance to be split as 3.9M to me and 4.8M to him, if I pose as a relative (since I have the same last name), and claimed the vault before it is seized and confiscated by authorities.
Isn’t this too good to be true !!! Hello, this is the age of the GOOGLE and FACEBOOK and everything can be verified in the internet.
@Elena
I received excatly the same letter, i email him back asking him about if he wantig some money or if not money it will be identy theft, and guess what i didn’t get no response. SCAM!! He wanted me fax my passport or my driver’s license