Avoid getting scammed by fake "Foreign Beneficiary" emails

What kind of email is "Foreign Beneficiary"?

Upon reading the "Foreign Beneficiary" email, we learned that it is spam. This phishing letter offers the recipient a shady deal wherein they will be presented as a "foreign beneficiary" and claim the funds of a deceased millionaire. The recipient is promised 40% of the unclaimed millions for their involvement. The scammers target personal information and may request victims to send them money.

"Foreign Beneficiary" email scam overview

The spam email with the subject "From Mr. Paul Wilson" (may vary) claims to be a missive from the "Director of Commercial Banking" of the NatWest bank.

The sender states to have found an account belonging to an American multi-millionaire, who had passed away alongside his immediate family in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. The director proposes to present the recipient as a "foreign beneficiary" and claim the 18.3 million pounds (GBP) from the deceased millionaire's NatWest account.

If the money is discovered by the bank, it will be considered to be unclaimed public funds and returned to the bank treasury. The deal require the utmost secrecy, and the recipient is promised 40% of the funds for their involvement.

As mentioned in the introduction, all the information in the "Foreign Beneficiary" email is false, and this mail is not associated with any real individuals or the National Westminster Bank Plc (NatWest).

The scam email requests the recipient to provide their full name, contact address, and telephone/fax number. Personally identifiable information can be used for a variety of nefarious purposes, including blackmail.

However, scammers can also ask for additional information, data (like log-in credentials) to be entered into phishing websites/files, or for victims to send them money.

When requesting payment, cyber criminals provide victims with legitimate-sounding reasons like handling taxes, transaction fees, etc. Difficult-to-trace methods are used for fund acquisition, such as cash hidden in packages and shipped, cryptocurrencies, gift cards, pre-paid vouchers, etc. By relying on such methods, scammers diminish the chances of successful prosecution and fund retrieval.

In summary, by trusting an email like "Foreign Beneficiary" – users can experience severe privacy issues, financial losses, and even identity theft.

If you have disclosed your personally identifiable or finance-related data – contact the appropriate authorities without delay.

Threat Summary:

Name	"Foreign Beneficiary" phishing email
Threat Type	Phishing, Scam, Social Engineering, Fraud
Fake Claim	Recipient will get 40% of a deceased millionaire's funds if they consent to being presented as an eligible beneficiary.
Symptoms	Unauthorized online purchases, changed online account passwords, identity theft, illegal access of the computer.
Distribution methods	Deceptive emails, rogue online pop-up ads, search engine poisoning techniques, misspelled domains.
Damage	Loss of sensitive private information, monetary loss, identity theft.
Malware Removal (Windows)	To eliminate possible malware infections, scan your computer with legitimate antivirus software. Our security researchers recommend using Combo Cleaner. ▼ Download Combo Cleaner To use full-featured product, you have to purchase a license for Combo Cleaner. 7 days free trial available. Combo Cleaner is owned and operated by Rcs Lt, the parent company of PCRisk.com read more.

Phishing spam campaign examples

"BMW Promotional Program", "Nedbank email scam", "SharePoint - ACH-Wire Authorization", "Microsoft Office 365 - Password Notification", and "SurePayroll email scam" are merely some of our newest articles on phishing emails.

Various scams are promoted through spam mail, including advance fee, inheritance, refund, tech support, sextortion, lottery, etc. Additionally, these emails are utilized in malware proliferation.

While spam letters are often poorly written and riddled with spelling/grammatical errors, they can be competently put together and even believably disguised as messages from genuine entities (e.g., companies, organizations, institutions, authorities, etc.).

How do spam campaigns infect computers?

Spam campaigns proliferate malware by distributing malicious files as attachments or download links. Infectious files can be archives (RAR, ZIP, etc.), executables (.exe, .run, etc.), documents (Microsoft Office, Microsoft OneNote, PDF, etc.), JavaScript, and so on.

Once such a file is opened – the infection chain is initiated. Some formats require additional user interaction into jumpstart malware download/installation chains. For example, Microsoft Office files need them to enable macro commands (i.e., editing/content), while OneNote documents require them to click embedded links/files.

How to avoid installation of malware?

Caution is crucial when approaching incoming mail (e.g., emails, DMs/PMs, SMSes, etc.). Attachments or links present in dubious/irrelevant messages must not be opened, as they can be infectious.

It must be mentioned that malware is not spread only through spam mail. Therefore, we recommend being careful while browsing, as the Internet is full of well-disguised deceptive and malicious content.

Additionally, all downloads must be performed from official and verified channels. Another recommendation is to activate and update programs using functions/tools provided by legitimate developers, as illegal activation ("cracking") tools and third-party updaters may contain malware.

It is paramount for device integrity and user safety to have a reputable anti-virus installed and kept up-to-date. This software must be used to run regular system scans and to remove detected threats/issues. If you've already opened malicious attachments, we recommend running a scan with Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows to automatically eliminate infiltrated malware.

Text presented in the "Foreign Beneficiary" spam email letter:

Subject: From Mr. Paul Wilson

 

From Mr. Paul Wilson
Email: pulwilson44@hotmail.com

My name is Mr. Paul Wilson, NatWest, Director of Commercial Banking, Chelmsford & Romford. United Kingdom. Being a top executive at NATWEST, I discovered a Numbered account with a credit balance of £18.300,000 00 British Pounds plus accumulated interest, which belongs to an American multi-millionaire Crude oil Merchant Mr. David Watkins, who was a victim of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Until now, nobody knows about his bank account with NatWest Bank and my further investigation proved that the deceased immediate family also died in the tragedy.

With my position at the bank, I have all access, secret details and necessary contacts for claim of the funds without any hitch. But due to the sensitive nature of my job, I need a foreigner to HELP claim the funds, my position as a civil servant and as a staff of the bank does not permit me or my relatives to claim this funds. Therefore I contact you as a foreigner to arrange the transfer of this fund out of this account before our next auditing because If our bank management discover that this account has been latent for these long, it will be frozen and the money will be returned to the bank treasury, as unclaimed public funds. Therefore, I want you to stand as the “Foreign Beneficiary", and I assure you of a perfect transfer strategy that will be placed in your name legally, so that nobody will suspect your claims.

 

For your involvement in this deal, you are entitled to 40% of the total amount transferred to your bank account and I will count on your sense of secrecy in order to avoid risky exposure of this deal. Upon consideration of the offer, Kindly provide me with your full name, contact address and your direct telephone/fax number, to enable me re-profile the fund to your name as the heir beneficiary and guide your communication with the bank for onward release and transfer of the fund to your bank account. Considering the sensitivity nature and magnitude of this project,i ask your reply to my private Email: pulwilson44@hotmail.com

Thanking you in anticipation for your prompt response.

Best Regards,

Mr. Paul Wilson,
NatWest Bank Plc.
Director Commercial Banking,
Chelmsford & Romford.

Appearance of the "Foreign Beneficiary" spam email (GIF):

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Quick menu:

• What is "Foreign Beneficiary" phishing email?
• Types of malicious emails.
• How to spot a malicious email?
• What to do if you fell for an email scam?

Types of malicious emails:

Phishing Emails

Most commonly, cybercriminals use deceptive emails to trick Internet users into giving away their sensitive private information, for example, login information for various online services, email accounts, or online banking information.

Such attacks are called phishing. In a phishing attack, cybercriminals usually send an email message with some popular service logo (for example, Microsoft, DHL, Amazon, Netflix), create urgency (wrong shipping address, expired password, etc.), and place a link which they hope their potential victims will click on.

After clicking the link presented in such email message, victims are redirected to a fake website that looks identical or extremely similar to the original one. Victims are then asked to enter their password, credit card details, or some other information that gets stolen by cybercriminals.

Emails with Malicious Attachments

Another popular attack vector is email spam with malicious attachments that infect users' computers with malware. Malicious attachments usually carry trojans that are capable of stealing passwords, banking information, and other sensitive information.

In such attacks, cybercriminals' main goal is to trick their potential victims into opening an infected email attachment. To achieve this goal, email messages usually talk about recently received invoices, faxes, or voice messages.

If a potential victim falls for the lure and opens the attachment, their computers get infected, and cybercriminals can collect a lot of sensitive information.

While it's a more complicated method to steal personal information (spam filters and antivirus programs usually detect such attempts), if successful, cybercriminals can get a much wider array of data and can collect information for a long period of time.

Sextortion Emails

This is a type of phishing. In this case, users receive an email claiming that a cybercriminal could access the webcam of the potential victim and has a video recording of one's masturbation.

To get rid of the video, victims are asked to pay a ransom (usually using Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency). Nevertheless, all of these claims are false - users who receive such emails should ignore and delete them.

How to spot a malicious email?

While cyber criminals try to make their lure emails look trustworthy, here are some things that you should look for when trying to spot a phishing email:

• Check the sender's ("from") email address: Hover your mouse over the "from" address and check if it's legitimate. For example, if you received an email from Microsoft, be sure to check if the email address is @microsoft.com and not something suspicious like @m1crosoft.com, @microsfot.com, @account-security-noreply.com, etc.
• Check for generic greetings: If the greeting in the email is "Dear user", "Dear @youremail.com", "Dear valued customer", this should raise suspiciousness. Most commonly, companies call you by your name. Lack of this information could signal a phishing attempt.
• Check the links in the email: Hover your mouse over the link presented in the email, if the link that appears seems suspicious, don't click it. For example, if you received an email from Microsoft and the link in the email shows that it will go to firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0... you shouldn't trust it. It's best not to click any links in the emails but to visit the company website that sent you the email in the first place.
• Don't blindly trust email attachments: Most commonly, legitimate companies will ask you to log in to their website and to view any documents there; if you received an email with an attachment, it's a good idea to scan it with an antivirus application. Infected email attachments are a common attack vector used by cybercriminals.

To minimise the risk of opening phishing and malicious emails we recommend using Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows. 

Example of a spam email:

What to do if you fell for an email scam?

• If you clicked on a link in a phishing email and entered your password - be sure to change your password as soon as possible. Usually, cybercriminals collect stolen credentials and then sell them to other groups that use them for malicious purposes. If you change your password in a timely manner, there's a chance that criminals won't have enough time to do any damage.
• If you entered your credit card information - contact your bank as soon as possible and explain the situation. There's a good chance that you will need to cancel your compromised credit card and get a new one.
• If you see any signs of identity theft - you should immediately contact the Federal Trade Commission. This institution will collect information about your situation and create a personal recovery plan.
• If you opened a malicious attachment - your computer is probably infected, you should scan it with a reputable antivirus application. For this purpose, we recommend using Combo Cleaner Antivirus for Windows.
• Help other Internet users - report phishing emails to Anti-Phishing Working Group, FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, National Fraud Information Center and U.S. Department of Justice.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why did I receive this email?

Spam emails are not personal, even if they include information relevant to the recipients. Cyber criminals distribute this mail in massive operations, hoping that at least some recipients will fall for their scams.

I have provided my personal information when tricked by this spam email, what should I do?

If you have provided your log-in credentials – change the passwords of all possibly exposed accounts and inform their official support without delay. And if you've disclosed other private data (e.g., ID card details, passport photos/scans, credit/debit card numbers, etc.) – immediately contact the corresponding authorities.

I have read a spam email but didn't open the attachment, is my computer infected?

No, merely reading an email is safe. Systems are infected when malicious attachments or links are opened/clicked.

I have downloaded and opened a file attached to a spam email, is my computer infected?

Infection success rates can be influenced by file formats. If the opened file was an executable (.exe, run, etc.) – your device was most likely infected. However, some formats might need extra actions to initiate system infection processes. For example, documents (.doc, .xls, .pdf, .one, etc.) may require users to enable macro commands, click embedded content, or perform other actions to trigger malware download/installation.

Will Combo Cleaner remove malware infections present in email attachments?

Yes, Combo Cleaner is designed to scan computers and eliminate all manner of threats. It can detect and remove most of the known malware infections. Remember that sophisticated malicious programs usually hide deep within systems – therefore, running a full system scan is essential for detection.

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