Fraud or not: a stranger wants to transfer a lot of money to me

Question

I have recently received an email from a stranger that says she wants to send me a big deal of money for some specific reason and she said that she has talked to the bank (Banque Atlantique Groupe Lome Togo) and she gave me a phone number and an email address so that I contact the bank and follow the procedure that is required for the money to be transferred to me. Now after I emailed the bank, they replied with this:

To enable us process and transfer the fund to the bank account you will be sending to us, the pdf attachment file contain copy of Identification/Transfer Processing Form E-27. Which you have to carefully fill and return to this bank with the required processing fee US$1,750.00 (One Thousand, Seven Hundred & Fifty United States Dollars).

Upon the receipt of the required fee, we shall appoint one of our bank accredited attorney to stand as your legal representative here since you are not here in person, so that he can help you to secure the transfer approval from the authorized ministry here before we shall process and transfer the fund to the bank account you will be submitting to this bank.

How can I make sure this is not a fraud and how can I be secure?

Anyone reputable would take the processing fees out of the money that was being paid to you — there’d be nothing for you to pay out of your current money. — Mike Scott, Dec 01 '19 at 15:35
You can't trust Togolese princes to send you money, only the Nigerian ones :->) — Bob Baerker, Dec 02 '19 at 02:20
Did you ever ask yourself, why somebody whom you don't know wants to give you loads of money ?? — DumbCoder, Dec 02 '19 at 08:42

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 01 '19 at 13:19

It is a fraud/scam.

No stranger wants to give you money. If they are rich they should be paying the transfer fee. But they expect you to pay in advance.

You used the contact info the stranger gave you to verify what the stranger said. Of course the people at the other end verified it, they are in on it.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 01 '19 at 15:29

2

Anyone who contacts you out of the blue and says they want to give you money is a scammer.

Anytime someone says they have a lot of money for you but you have to pay some money to get it (a fee, or tax, or a bribe, or a courier charge) it is a scam.

answered Dec 01 '19 at 15:29

Vicky

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"Anyone who contacts you out of the blue and says they want to give you money is a scammer." This absolute statement is manifestly not true. There have been a couple of questions on this site asking if "we want to give you money" in the form of a big inheritance, and they have not been scams. – RonJohn Dec 01 '19 at 15:44

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 02 '19 at 02:01

There is no free lunch. Anybody giving you money without expecting anything in return (except your parents or trusted friends) is doing fraud. The messages can be duplicated. If they are so eager to give you money why processing charges, delivery charges, transfer charges etc. My advise is please don't rush by seeing a lot of money otherwise you'll be out of 1750/-

Fraud or not: a stranger wants to transfer a lot of money to me

3 Answers3