ScamVictimsUnited.com

This smacks of a scam but I can't see where it's going - I haven't come across one quite like this previously. The email was received from the following address (dmurray1105@yahoo.com), the subject heading was 'Funeral Arrangement' and the text of the email reads as follows:

Hello,
I am Fred Gibson Morrison,i will like to know if you render funaral service and burials because i would like to arrange for a burail in your location but first i will like to know if you can arrenge for pick up because the corpse is in located in an oversea country(Republic de Benin).

Meanwhile, i will like to confirm if you can help me and bring the corpse down to your location for burial.

I will need you to contact The funeral home in Republic de Benin where the remains is located to confirm the shipping arrangement and conclussion.

The Name of the Funeral Home is Citypass Moutuary,the director name's is Paul Marcus,phone number is +234-01 4390343 or +234 8059983485, email address is derlboi@yahoo.com, The deceaseds Name is Joe Morrinson.

Please can you call or email them to figure out the estimate shipping charges of the remains back to your location for burial while i wait to hear back from you?.

Thanks
Fred Morrison
E-mail: alanio1105@yahoo.co.uk


When vaguely prompted for further information, the response given was:

Hello Andrew,
I will provide you with my credit card details to put the total charges on immediately the arrangement has been confirmed.

Funeral Home: Citypass Moutuary
Director: Paul Marcus
Phone: +234 01 4390343
+234 8059983485
Email: derlboi@yahoo.com
Names of Deceased: Joe Morrison
Age:70 years
1937/2007
April 24 1937-July 10 2007
Passed away: on10th July 2007
Cause of Death, Car Accident.

Please contact the funeral director in Nigeria where the corpse is been preserved for details.

Thanks

Fred


Any help would be appreciated - previously encountered scams are usually detailed online but this one doesn't follow the usual Get Rich Quick format.... please help, apologies to all if I seem a bit naive

...just called Rowland Bros International - they are specialists in international repatriation of the deceased. The guy there I spoke to reassured me that he had CALLED the numbers in the email; apparently one of them doesn't work (?!) and the other is a combined phone / fax machine.

The guy at Rowland Bros I spoke to said that he'd spoken to the Funeral Director named in the email, who had confirmed that the contents of the email was true. I questioned the validity of this, saying that if it was a scam, OF COURSE the phone was going to be answered by someone purporting to be the Funeral Director in question.... I asked him whether he thought it was odd that the number for the 'CityPass Mortuary' didn't appear to be available ANYWHERE apart from the email. He didn't seem to have considered this..........!!!

Just when I thought I have seen everything before these fraudsters come up with something new. Now a scam involving corpses, unreal.

I should have made that clear on my original post that we do have a Funeral Parlour here in the UK and the enquiry is from someone who allegedly wants the body of their deceased relative returned to their home town.

I tried to look up the funeral home being used (Citypass Moutuary) and did not find anything on google. I also noticed the word Mortuary is spelt wrong in their email. Also the +234 prefix to the phone number is in Nigeria, a hot spot for fraud activity. The location of the corpse is in Republic de Benin and that is bordered by Nigeria on the east. The entire thing smells fishy to me.

I have to say that our funeral home just received a TDDY relay call, followed by a fax with this exact same scam. Only this time, he used the name Jeff rather than Fred. But the fax number is the same, and the name of the deceased is the same, as well as the DOB. The date of death was November30th. I know that this is a scam, since we have been receiving faxes from this guy for over a year now. I have reported him to our state agency numerous times, and I have faxed them the emails that he continues to send. Just so you know, I have looked up all of the numbers in question, and the fax number goes to a cell/pc/fax with an internet account that is registered in Middlesex County, MA. I have now forwarded everything we have received from this guy to the Secret Service, the US Postal Inspectors Office and the FBI. I would be very leary of this guy....if you talk to him even once...he will come up with a new scam to try to get you to talk to him again. That's why he uses the TDDY relay call system. Also, don't let him talk you into ordering cremation jewelry either. He uses a stolen credit card number, and will ask you print the card rather than swiping it and he will ask you then to run it for an additional amount of money so he can have the advance.

We have become very aware of this scam and now have been forwarding everything to our local Directors Association to make others aware of it as well. It's obvious that this guy has a Director's Yellow Book that he's working out of.

Interesting. I wonder how the faxes then get to Nigeria where the phone #'s are located. These people are scum bags to fraud a funeral home. What will they come up with next.

That's the point....that's why they give you another fax number to send the info to, or an email address to send it to....because it's all bogus! Best part is, as bad as their grammar and spelling are....they're easy to spot.

So "[b]kudos[/b]" to them for making it easy for the educated to know what they're really about!

Yeah they may be easy to spot, but they are still getting people to fall for their scams. Your key word is "Educated" and that is how they get people to fall for the scams since they are not educated on how to spot the scams and that is why this website is so useful because it helps people understand the scams.

Ok time for some dissection. Follow along as I mark this puppy up.

I am in Australia and am an Australian Funeral Director, I received the same email. Thanks for saving me the time in replying to this fool.

Well, well - poor Mr. Joe Morinson seems to be lying dead all over the world...
This is a scam allright; I run a company that is involved in repatriation and other funeral
arrangements, and work as a post-mortem technician.

I recieved my first e-mail from a mr. JEFF Morinson, who wanted to have his UNCLE Joe Morinson
who was stacked in a mortuary - Part life mortuary - in Lagos. He wanted to pay for the repatriation and funeral costs with his credit card, but the Lagos mortuary didn't take credit cards...
As it turned out, Jeff Morinson was not Swedish, nor was his uncle - who suddenly became his FATHER. And they knew nothing about Swedish geography, because they suggested a town in the northern part of Sweden - a very small town where everybody knows who lives/has lived there the last generation - far away from the airport.

Our company was to help Jeff withdraw money from the credit card and pay the Lagos mortuary, the freight and our own costs with it. Some of the correspondence seemed possible or genuine, but in the end I asked some questions Jeff couldn't answer and everything was revealed.
Nota Bene: I might not have thoght of this as connected with the Nigerian Letters if it hadn't been
for a very close friend of mine, who reacted seconds after I mentiond the e-mails!

So if you don't want to end up being robbed, or helping someone to empty an actual Master Card
or even worse: getting rid of a murder victim from Nigeria, or maybe a stolen/unclaimed body, disregard everything Mr Morinson has to say. Stay safe!

It's disgusting that people joke about these type of things, let alone trying to scam people!! Makes me sick

We've been getting emails from a David Wilkinson in the UK whose Uncle died back in November, he's sent us 4 credit cards which all expire one month after the other, again he's using CITYPASS Mortuary, we've tried to get the police to check it out but they're not really interested
[b]This is one of the emails he sent[/b]:
I got a mail from CITY PASS MORTUARY and they made it
> clear to me that they tried calling your phone but its on voice
> mail...Caroline you need to get the funds sent to them as soon as
> possible because CITY PASS MORTUARY told me they will need to request
> for more funds from me due to the delay in shipping the body.
>
> At this point now you will have to call them and conclude arrangement
> with them so as not to cost me more money.

..........................we called the hopital that issued the death certificate and they said they'd had no deaths there for years .

We need these people to stop this as we are working very hard for very little return in a very stressful business trying to assist real people who are in mourning not people who are trying to launder other peoples money

The credit card number are stolen. I would contact the credit card company and give them this information. The owner of the credit card might not even know that their card is being used in a scam.