I recently had a customer reach out to me asking for my thoughts about the following email:
I am offering my late husband’s Yamaha Piano to anyone passionate about musical instruments. Please inform me if you are interested or if you know someone who might appreciate this instrument.
Best regards,
Tiffany
My customer then replied to the above email, asking for more details. He received the following reply:
Thanks for your message.
The Yamaha Baby Grand Piano GC1 model used to be owned and played by my husband who passed away last year, the dimension is “161cm by 149cm”. It was last tuned sometime last year before he passed. She’s about 3 years old and in an impeccable condition.
I’m relocating to France next two weeks, and I don’t think my husband will be happy if I sell this piano, so I’m hoping to give it out to someone who is a passionate lover of the instrument, I wasn’t going to leave it alone in an empty house.
The Piano is currently in storage in Little Rock Arkansas with the movers I employed to move my properties from my house. I can forward you the movers’ contact details to enable you to contact them. The movers can deliver anywhere. However, I will not be responsible for the cost of delivering the piano to you. However, the movers’ rates are reasonably affordable.
I look forward to your reply.
Tiffany
This is a scam. Any email offering a free piano, particularly one of value, is statistically almost certain to be a scam. Most of these emails follow similar patterns, and the piano’s “owner” typically will tell you the piano is currently being handled by a mover or storage company, and that you just need to send them money. There is no piano. You will not see your money again, and they’ll gather your personal information for future attacks.
Nearly all scam emails that people have shared with me have involved deceased family members. Below are a variety of messages I’ve received over the last two years. Hopefully, if you’re received a similar email, one of these will come up in your web search:
Note that these emails often include pictures of the instrument, and these pictures are stripped from Craigslist, Facebook, and other platforms with pianos for sale, such as the one in this post. The pianos are nearly always higher value instruments, worth thousands, in order to activate your sense of lost opportunity.
How are you doing today? I am looking to give away my late husband’s Yamaha baby grand piano to a passionate instrument lover, Please let me know if you will take it or have someone who will care for it. Contact me via: [EMAIL ADDRESS]
Regards,
Lacikay
How are you doing today? I am looking to give away my late husband’s Yamaha baby grand piano to a passionate instrument lover, please let me know if you will take it or have someone who will care for it.
Regards,
Elysha
Alice
How are you doing today? I am looking to give away my late husband’s Yamaha baby grand piano to a passionate instrument lover, Please let me know if you will take it or have someone who will care for it. Regards,
Mrs Mata
I hope this mail gets to you soon. I’m looking to give away my late husband’s baby grand piano to a loving home, music school or church. Please let me know if you will adopt it or if you have someone in mind who wants it, just in case you don’t need it.
Best Wishes,
Laura
I received the same email on the 10th of October. When arranging the transport they asked me to pay the money up front (€420). Then I used google picture search (from the piano) to check if they ripped the picture from someone else and then found this message. Thanks a lot for confirming my suspect of scam. I will report it to the police as well. Hope they can trace them down with the (German) IBAN number or taking over the chat.
I have to say they were very misleading using even a second mailadres, fake reference numbers for transport and sending about 15 emails up and down to talk things through. AI makes these emails and scams smarter!
I’m glad I could help! Yes, AI has made those emails (particularly their tailored and consistent responses) much more difficult to detect. Particularly for those unaware the technology exists. The pictures seem to usually be sourced from piano sales on Facebook and Craigslist, so the reverse images searches don’t always work.
Never, ever buy a piano without either seeing it yourself, or having a trusted third-party see it. I’ve inspected multiple pianos in long-term storage, so the fact it’s “in storage” is no excuse.
Please let me know if you authorities trace them down, although it’s often the case they use bank accounts of random individuals they’ve purchased access to through dark web marketplaces, and then cash out through crypto. Internet criminals are a slippery bunch.