Is this a scam? (I think it is)

[2fast748]

My parents have been contacted by an Investment company suggesting a third party would like to buy some shares they own at a very good (i.e. too good to be true) price.

The story is it's part of a hostile takeover that has valued some of the company's licenses as very valuable. The only thing my parents have done is sign a non-disclosure agreement and returned it via email. Last night they got a call informing them they would need to take out an insurance before the transaction could take place, this would be 10% of the value of the shares which the guy is now saying will probably be sold for 12x their current value.

It has scam written all over it to me but their email and website appear pretty genuine (the email headers don't contain any spurious addresses but I am aware this can be spoofed).

Anybody had anything similar happen to them?

[marshalla]

Sounds like just another variation on advance fee fraud.

If the "broker" is that confident of the sale and earning his commission, why does he need to sell something to cover a loss that won't exist even if the sale falls through ?

It could also be a simple, although somewhat unusual, phishing attack.

[marshalla]

Ah - seems my first analysis was correct, here's the warning :

http://www.rm.com/investors/NewsDetail.asp?cref=IN...

[2fast748]

Cheers for the speedy and useful response.

[Sir Bagalot]

Tell the broker if he pays for the insurance then he can take 50% of the profit from the shares instead