"ADG-Succession firm: as part of an heir search, an unclaimed inheritance may concern you. Please confirm your identity within 15 days: https://adg-successions-dossier.com/verif"
No parcel, no fine, no frozen bank account. This particular text message doesn't frighten you — it intrigues you. And statistically, it works better than many threats, because it triggers a reflex we were never taught to keep an eye on: curiosity.
The fake probate genealogist scam is one of the quietest operations in the French smishing landscape. It never makes headlines, it rarely prompts an immediate complaint (nobody likes to admit they believed in an inheritance), and it leans on a real, respectable profession that the general public knows little about. That pocket of ignorance is exactly where its value lies.
Probate genealogists really do exist — and that's the problem
When a notary opens an estate and cannot identify or locate all the rightful heirs, they may commission a probate genealogist. This professional works back through civil registry records, reconstructs the family tree, and tracks down the forgotten heirs of an unmarried great-uncle or a cousin who moved abroad. Well-known firms have been practising this trade in France for more than a century, and the profession is represented by recognised trade bodies.
So the job is entirely legitimate. But three of its features make it ideal to impersonate:
- It arrives out of the blue. Nobody expects to be contacted by a genealogist. The lack of any prior context — which would be suspicious coming from a bank — is the norm here.
- It refers to a relative you don't know. Saying "your maternal great-uncle" to someone who has no idea whether they had one creates no detectable contradiction.
- It involves money. An unclaimed inheritance is a tangible sum, sometimes quoted in the tens of thousands of euros. The motive is instantly understandable.
The fraudster therefore has nothing to invent. All they need to do is borrow an existing profession, make up a plausible firm name — often a three-letter acronym followed by "Succession", "Patrimoine" or "Généalogie" — and wait for the recipient to do the rest of the work.
What the text message sets off in your head
Classic smishing runs on fear: your parcel is being returned, your fine is about to double, your account has been suspended. The brain switches into emergency mode and bypasses verification.
The inheritance text message works the other way round, and that is what makes it insidious. There is no real urgency in the message: fifteen days is almost generous. The lever isn't panic, it's projection. Within seconds, the recipient starts doing mental genealogy: did my mother have a brother? There was that cousin up north nobody talked about any more…
And the moment you start searching your own family memory for a reason why the message might be true, you've already tipped over. You're no longer checking the message: you're looking to confirm it. This is the mechanism that Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr describes in its phishing factsheets as confirmation bias — the brain holds on to the details that fit and pushes aside the ones that don't.
A second, more perverse effect: anticipated shame. Falling for a parcel scam is ordinary. Admitting you hoped for an inheritance is humiliating. That embarrassment partly explains why these frauds are under-reported to official platforms — and therefore why they last so long.
The three possible outcomes of this text message
Depending on the script, the fake genealogist is after different things. Three set-ups can be distinguished, and they are often combined.
1. Harvesting civil-status data
The link leads to an official-looking form: birth name, married name, date and place of birth, parents' names, address, phone number, sometimes a photo of an ID document "to establish the devolution of the estate".
That bundle of information is anything but harmless. It is the raw material of identity theft: opening an online account, taking out a consumer loan, requesting an official document. A mother's maiden name and a place of birth are still used today as security questions by some services.
2. The "administrative fees" to be paid
The second set-up is financial and direct. After a first reassuring exchange, someone announces that the estate has been duly established, that your share amounts to a precise figure, but that there are still deed fees, inheritance tax or an advance on fees to settle before the money can be released.
This is the absolute hallmark of the scam, and it deserves to be spelled out:
A probate genealogist commissioned by a notary is paid through a percentage taken from the share of the inheritance they secure for you, under an estate disclosure contract signed beforehand. They will never ask you for an upfront transfer, administrative fees or an advance payment. If money has to come out of your pocket before any comes in, it isn't an inheritance.
3. The bank account "to receive the funds"
The most lucrative variant: they don't ask you for money, they ask where to send it. IBAN, bank details, sometimes online banking credentials "to check that the beneficiary account complies". This is frequently followed by a phone call designed to get you to read out a validation code received by text message.
In this configuration, the initial text is merely the ticket in. The real work is done by phone, with a calm, polite caller who applies no pressure — because here, slowness is a guarantee of credibility.
The signs that give the fake genealogist away
These messages are better written than the average smishing attempt. So you need to look beyond the spelling.
| Element | Actual practice | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| First contact | Registered postal letter, as a rule | Text message or WhatsApp message |
| Identity of the deceased | Named precisely in the letter | "a relative", "a member of your family" |
| Notary | Identifiable name and practice | No notary named, or an unverifiable name |
| Link | No online form to fill in | Far-fetched domain, long subdomain |
| Deadline | Several months — estates are not in a hurry | "within 15 days", "or forfeit your claim" |
| Money | Deducted from your share at the end | Fees requested before any payment out |
The single most telling point remains the absence of a name. A genuine heir search starts from an identified deceased person: the letter mentions an individual, a date of death, a département. A message that talks about "an inheritance concerning you" without ever naming anyone has nobody to name.
As for the sending number, it proves nothing either way. Sender identity spoofing — as it is known — makes it possible to display any name or number. And a message that appears to slot into an existing conversation thread is no more trustworthy for it.
Checking it out in three minutes, without disclosing anything
The good news is that inheritance is one of the few areas where verification is simple, free and centralised.
1. Don't touch the link. Not to read it, not "just to have a look". A form that is partly filled in and then abandoned often already transmits the fields you entered.
2. Query the central register of last wills and testaments. Managed by the notarial profession, it tells you whether a will has been lodged in the name of a deceased person. The request goes through a notary, and the official directory is available at notaires.fr.
3. Check that the firm exists. A probate genealogist is a registered business: its record can be consulted in the French государственный business directory. A firm set up three weeks ago, or entirely absent from the registers, settles the matter.
4. Call the notary, not the number in the message. If a practice is named, look up its contact details yourself in the notaries' directory and call directly. A notarial office can confirm or deny an heir-search mandate within minutes.
5. Talk to someone else about it. This is the most effective step and the least used. Saying out loud "I got a text saying an uncle left me money" is often enough to hear the implausibility for yourself.
For elderly people living alone, this step is decisive. A mobile phone with large buttons with a short call list doesn't stop fraudulent texts arriving, but it limits exposure to links and makes it easier to call a trusted relative straight away. Some models even offer a dedicated button for a trusted contact.
The role of data already in circulation
Why do these messages sometimes reach people genuinely involved in an ongoing estate? Most often it's a statistical coincidence: hundreds of thousands of estates are opened every year in France, and a mass send-out is bound to intersect with a real situation eventually.
But a growing share of these campaigns is targeted. The data breaches of recent years — telecoms operators, health insurers, e-commerce sites, hobby genealogy platforms — have put name/phone pairings into circulation, sometimes dates of birth and family connections too. A message that gets your name right stopped being proof of authenticity a long time ago.
Family genealogy enthusiasts are particularly exposed: trees published online, mutual-help forums, rare surnames. A genealogy software package installed locally, rather than a fully public tree, appreciably reduces your attack surface — and if you do want to publish, it's better to hide living people, which most platforms allow with a single setting.
In the same spirit, if you keep digitised family documents — certificates, family record books, archive photographs — an encrypted external hard drive is preferable to a shared online folder accessible via a link. These documents contain exactly the civil-status information the fraudsters are after.
What to do if you've already replied
The mistake is common and recoverable, provided you act in the right order.
- You've disclosed civil-status data. No immediate banking action is needed, but watch out for loans or subscriptions appearing in your name. You can ask the Banque de France to consult the incident files concerning you, free of charge and without going through a paid intermediary.
- You've given out an IBAN. An IBAN alone doesn't allow anyone to empty an account, but it does allow fraudulent direct debits. Ask your bank to block direct debits and check the list of your mandates.
- You've sent money. Contact your bank immediately to attempt a recall of funds, then file a complaint. The THESEE platform, accessible via the service-public.fr website, allows online reporting of internet fraud.
- You've sent an ID document. File a complaint for risk of identity theft: the police report will be your only proof of good faith if a loan is taken out in your name.
- In every case, report the message. Forwarding it to 33700 (the official service for reporting unwanted text messages) feeds into the blocking of numbers and campaigns. It's free and takes ten seconds.
An archive binder dedicated to your correspondence with the bank, complaint filings and official letters may seem laughable in the digital age, but it's what makes the difference when a case drags on over several months and several contacts.
The reflex to remember
The inheritance scam exploits neither your naivety nor your unfamiliarity with technology. It exploits the fact that, in any family, nobody knows the whole family. There is always a branch lost track of, a name heard only once, a falling-out never explained. That blind spot is universal, and it costs nothing to exploit.
One rule is enough, and it goes far wider than inheritance: unexpected good news that arrives by text message and demands immediate action is bad news. Money that is legitimately yours never comes through a form found in a message. It comes through a notarial office, a signed letter, an appointment, and a timeframe measured in months.
If you want to understand the psychological levers these messages pull — authority, reciprocity, scarcity — a book on the psychology of manipulation will teach you more about smishing than any list of numbers to block. Recognising the mechanism means no longer depending on the content of the message.
And the next time an unknown firm tells you a distant relative thought of you: ask for the name. The real genealogist has it. The fraudster never does.
