fallen for one if not for a prompting he felt. The firm received a large wire transfer from a real (or so it seemed) company. We were supposed to send the funds on as part of a transaction. One of the dangers of wire transfers is that you get a sum, send it on, and it turns out the first sum didn't actually exist. You then are out the second transfer. Anyway, we get the money, wait about three days which is typically how long you need to wait, and then we are to send it on. We ask our bank if it is safe to do so. They say absolutely, 100% safe. No issue at all. We looked into it, its fine, its been long enough. Go ahead.

But for some reason, my dad doesn't feel good about this. Even though our bank gave us the green light. So he sits on it for a couple more days. The other party is getting madder and madder, demanding that we forward the funds. Checking with our bank who is saying to them that it is fine. This is day five or six now. The bank keeps saying that they promise everything is fine. Finally, my dad just assumes that his feelings were nothing and says to himself, okay, I will send it tomorrow morning. That night at like 10 pm, my Dad's banker who was also his friend, gives him a panicked call. He doesn't even say hello, he almost yells "you didn't send on the money did you?!" Luckily, he hadn't yet. apparently, the first transfer was fraudulent. Had my father sent the transfer out, we would have been out hundreds of thousands, worse yet, it would have been trust fund money. For those of you that don't know, any shenanigans with your trust fund is the fastest way to get disbarred. Doesn't matter if it isn't your fault. The bar will let many things go, but the trust is sacred.

Anyway, scammers suck. My dad still counts this whole episode as one of the greatest blessings of his life. Not listening to the prompting he got, even when the whole world said it was just fine, would have destroyed him.