Consumer Confidential: Scammers told my wife she was inheriting $25 million. I decided to play along
It was Emma Weibel's lucky day.
The Lake Oswego, Ore., resident received a letter from someone named Mike Ross informing her that an Aneta Weibel had died and left a $6-million estate. Ross said he wanted to have Emma declared Aneta's next of kin so she could inherit the bulk of the money, with a modest portion for him for his efforts.
"The whole thing is, of course, a hoax," Weibel, 79, told me. "But I can see this could be taken seriously by some people."
I can see that too.
As it happens, my wife received a similar letter recently, and for the last few weeks I've been corresponding by email and speaking on the phone with the scammers.
This led me down the rabbit hole of an impressively elaborate fraud involving
