Did the Nigerian Prince Move to Canada?

[Jim Koepke]

A letter came in the mail addressed to a former owner of my home who moved away more than a dozen years ago.

Many years ago he was contacted and said he doesn't care about mail coming to this address. We do not get as much of their mail as in the past. This one had a Canada Post / Postes Canada mark. Most of the time this would have been tossed in the recycling. Curiosity got the best of me.

My scanner doesn't want to work and my time is better spent on other things so a camera was used to create an image:

449071

the names of the former resident and the "firm's client" have been 'redacted.'

If this isn't a scam, it surely sounds like it isn't legal.

jtk

[Lee Schierer]

I agree it doesn't sound legit. The address doesn't appear to be a law firm and Mr Google doesn't seem to find the law firm.

.

[Jim Koepke]

Besides, who would leave a payable on death account of that sum without anyone named as a payee?

What is even more shocking is this came in the mail. My guess is if it was taken to the Post Office they would likely pass it around later for a laugh and not do much else.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

"This is 100% risk free." WARNING! WARNING WILL ROBINSON! Attorneys don't ever write things like that. Not ever. They don't give guarantees because they know better.

[Bruce King]

I don’t know because I’m busy with my foreign looking email from DHL about an unshipped package. On second thought, any unclaimed money deals get soaked up by buddies at insurance and law offices.

[Bill Dufour]

I think he misspelled Nigeria in the body of the letter he spelled it Niagra, Onterio. I have never heard of a interest bearing payment of this type that comes out to an exact penny amount . Much less round off to the nearest thousand dollars. Hard to think any lawyer would offer to help you commit fraud and theft in writing.
Bill D

[Bruce Wrenn]

A letter came in the mail addressed to a former owner of my home who moved away more than a dozen years ago.

Many years ago he was contacted and said he doesn't care about mail coming to this address. We do not get as much of their mail as in the past. This one had a Canada Post / Postes Canada mark. Most of the time this would have been tossed in the recycling. Curiosity got the best of me.

My scanner doesn't want to work and my time is better spent on other things so a camera was used to create an image:

449071

the names of the former resident and the "firm's client" have been 'redacted.'

If this isn't a scam, it surely sounds like it isn't legal.

jtk


So he hasn't gotten rid of that money yet? My wife got that or similar letter a couple years back. Money came from a deceased uncle who last name was the same as mine, not her maiden name. I wished I had realized we were kin before marring 42+ years ago. We might be cousins.

[Doug Garson]

Whenever I see those, I'm tempted to get a throw away email account and have some fun. Kinda like this
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_veitch_this_is_what_happens_when_you_reply_t o_spam_email?language=en

[Bill Dufour]

Don't worry Bruce. It is legal in about half the USA to marry your first cousin. Royalty do it all the time. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt married their sisters to keep the Greek blood strong.
Bill D.

[Curt Harms]

Don't worry Bruce. It is legal in about half the USA to marry your first cousin. Royalty do it all the time. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt married their sisters to keep the Greek blood strong.
Bill D.

Wandering off topic but I found it interesting that the English and German royal families were related by marriage. I was thinking that an awful lot of people died in WW I in what sort of looked like a family feud.

[Jim Becker]

Wandering off topic but I found it interesting that the English and German royal families were related by marriage. I was thinking that an awful lot of people died in WW I in what sort of looked like a family feud.
That would be my family tree....on both sides. Hapsburgs and Catherine of Aragon in the tree. (Her father was King of Spain)

[Steve Demuth]

Jim,

I assume you're not actually asking whether it is a scam? It is pretty obviously just a domestic variant of the Nigerian Prince scam.

The thing that amazes me is that there must me an actual, real uptake rate on these things, because otherwise nobody would bother doing them.

[Bill Dufour]

Queen Vctoria had nine children. She married her first cousin Albert. Her daughters got married to a future Russian Csar, King of Spain, German nobles etc. At least two grandchildren had hemophilia from bad genes. The Last Russian Csar's spoke English and German at home and a little French. Some even spoke Russian.
Bill D

[Stan Calow]

Thanks for tracking the Nigerian Prince down. I've been having trouble contacting him, and he owes me a couple of favors.

[Myk Rian]

That would be my family tree....on both sides. Hapsburgs and Catherine of Aragon in the tree. (Her father was King of Spain)

All bow down and welcome...uh...Sire Jimmy!
:D

My DNA shows I'm related to Jesse James.
My Wife agrees.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

This reminds me of a story told by one of my business partners in Jamaica. There was a lady who had conned the entire Jamaican government that she was a princess- I can't remember where from- and she apparently convinced a lot of people. She was at a high-level government function when my friend was talking to her, and she used in a sentence the word "highway," but she pronounced it, "I-way." Well, folks, there is no better way to know if someone is from Jamaica than if they say "I-way." She knew right then and there that this lady was a fake. The lady did ultimately get exposed as a fraud. I do not remember what the goal of her scam was- somehow she used her influence to get money or loans or grants of money- I don't recall.

[Jim Becker]

All bow down and welcome...uh...Sire Jimmy!
:D

My DNA shows I'm related to Jesse James.
My Wife agrees.

LOL....

I was pretty amused when I got back 10-13 generations (a few back to the late 1300s) and saw some of the "names". But the reality of things genetically is that I share about as much DNA with them as I do with almost anyone here at SMC.

But "holy big families, Batman"!!! I think some of those folks spend more time making babies than they did doing anything else. :D

[Jim Koepke]

But "holy big families, Batman"!!! I think some of those folks spend more time making babies than they did doing anything else. :D

Before electric lights and television that's what people did.

jtk

[Steve Demuth]

LOL....

I was pretty amused when I got back 10-13 generations (a few back to the late 1300s) and saw some of the "names". But the reality of things genetically is that I share about as much DNA with them as I do with almost anyone here at SMC.

But "holy big families, Batman"!!! I think some of those folks spend more time making babies than they did doing anything else. :D

Well, you share a lot of DNA with us. Even if we're monkeys, we've got 90% plus the same DNA.

DNA you have in common with some today is quite a different question than whether or not the DNA you have is directly transmitted to you from some particular ancestor through a line of descent. Thirteen generations back you have 8000+ grandparents (although same will at that remove probably be your grandparent^13 multiple times, so the unique number is smaller. You only have 46 chromosomes, so you can't trace any chromosomes back to most of those ancestors. Any DNA you inherited from one of those excluded, you got through crossing-over. That's impossible to predict, other than to say, it won't keep most of your ancestor's in your DNA family tree.

I've met a few people who claim to be able to trace their ancestry back as far as the time of Charlemagne. That's 50 generations back. At that remove, you have 1000 trillion grandparents. You only have circa 3 billion base pairs in your DNA, so you have DNA from fewer than one in a million of those lines of descent. Although, at that remove, some ancestors appear as your grandparent in thousands and in some cases millions of lines. Can't be otherwise - there have been at most about 100 billion humans in the history of the species.

[Jim Koepke]

That's 50 generations back. At that remove, you have 1000 trillion grandparents.
[edited]
- there have been at most about 100 billion humans in the history of the species.

One or the other of these two statements can be true, not both, unless something has passed by me.

jtk

[Doug Garson]

Must be the new math.

[Steve Demuth]

One or the other of these two statements can be true, not both, unless something has passed by me.

jtk

Well it's a matter of how you count. If you think of yourself as at the bottom of an inverted pyramid representing your family tree, there are two lines from you to your parents, and two lines from each of them to their parents, your grandparents. So, there are four lines you can follow from you to a grandparent. So too, there are 8 lines you can follow from yourself to a great grandparent. Each generation back the number of lines doubles. By 32 generations back - roughly 8 centuries, give or take, you can follow 2 billion lines to 32nd remove ancestors.

But there weren't nearly enough people alive at that time for each of those lines to end at a unique individual. There will be many instances of the same person being your 32nd degree grandparent through multiple lines of descent. At 1200 years (50 generations), the number is 1000 Trillion lines of descent, but only a few thousands to hundreds of thousands of unique individuals sitting in them.

So, it is true, although paradoxical, that if you're descended from Charlemagne, and could prove that by tracing at least one line (you obviously can't trace all 1000 trillion), it's highly probably that you're descended from him by thousands of different paths, and yet quite possible that you inherited absolutely none of your DNA directly from him.

[Jim Koepke]

That's 50 generations back. At that remove, you have 1000 trillion grandparents.

This is the part that threw me off. Having that many grandparents was hard to envision.

jtk

[Brian Elfert]

It only takes some basic detective work to figure out this is a complete scam. The website doesn't exist and a search for the firm's name doesn't turn up any information except that other people have been searching for the same company name.

I'm sure the sender thinks the recipients will take a postal letter more seriously than an email. It costs a little money to send these out, but if you send out a few thousand and hook someone you'll make a profit.

[Steve Demuth]

This is the part that threw me off. Having that many grandparents was hard to envision.

jtk

Exponential growth is mindblowing. But if you are n generations back, you have 2n lines of descent in that generation. Grandparents: 22 = 4; Greatgrandparents: 23= 8; Greatgreats: 24= 16; Charlemagne era (assuming 4 generations per century): 250 = 1.125 X 1015.

Just for giggles, there is another computation (that unfortunately requires a good deal more math and simulation) that shows that if any of Charlemagne's DNA survives by direct descent, then the most likely case is that most of the European population has it. This is a statistical, not absolute conclusion, but once you get into higher generation numbers, population genetics dictates that an ancient "stud" is either ubiquitous or dead.

[William Fretwell]

I thought that scam had faded away 20 years ago. Perhaps in these computerized times they think the old way has more credibility.
The Canadian government tender request to build death camps for Covid in the wilderness was far more amusing. It had to have a ‘guillotine’ to cope with the hordes. The give away was it was all in imperial units and we are metric!