Question on Probate company - Legacy Probate Services - Legacy Probate International

[Appletree63]

Hello - New member here Thanks
I just came across your forum and found a similar question, but a different company. Just wondering if anyone has ever heard of a company called Legacy Probate Service or Legacy Probate international. Their website is legacy-probate.com. They contacted my parents about something that one of them has an inheritance due to them but they wont really give a whole lot of information and are asking them to sign a contract paying them a pretty hefty percentage. As the protective daughter I am, I tried looking them up cause they said they were in Salt lake City UT, but I just found they they only recently opened an LLC in Delaware and they have a so called office in Florida that looks like its in someones house. There are no names of principals or anything and their website is registered through a privacy company to avoid giving any information and they have no registration at all in Florida despite them saying they have an office there. It all just seems a little too fishy to me that they really have no record or history on the web and no names to go along with it. I know that there are other companies that do similar work from what I've seen, but this one just seems a bit shady. Just seeing if anyone has any idea.. Just looking out for my parents. Thanks

[shipo]

Were your parents expecting any kind of inheritance? If not, my "SCAM" sense would be working overtime, just like yours is.

[Appletree63]

Thanks so Much Shipo. The plot just thickened. When I was first calling around I found that Legacy initially werent even registered in florida where their website says they have an office, but then apparently just last week they did register as a foreign corporation, Legacy Probate International . The persons name associated with the company is a John N Bergquist. When I google his name it brings him up as an employee of "Kemp and Associates" out of Salt Lake City which is the company mentioned in another post on this site . When I search for Kemp, I find that they were indicted and plead guilty to federal charges and fined $1,500,000.00 by the Department of Justice and has all sorts of complaints all over the internet. When I look up the tax ID/EIN listed on Legacy Probate's corporate listing 87-0490601, it comes up as Kemp and Associates' number !! So clearly this whole thing is Kemp and Associates is trying to set up a shell company to try to hide their previous criminal wrongdoing and bad reputation. Funny how Legacy probate Services website says that they have served thousands of clients, when they have only existed on paper for a short time. Totally unreal. I told my parents to rip up the papers and throw them away. Its really amazing the lengths that these frauds will go through to scam people. Thanks again.

[jmp042]

Hi, new member here. I too just received a letter (via Fedex) from this company (Legacy Probate Intl), similar to the above, distant relative passed away, no will, same fee terms, etc.. While it looks legitimate, I am hesitant to participate, even though said relative had a modest estate (I visited them once approx. 30 years ago), had no real relationship, though my mother did while she was alive. I think I shall pass on this as well.

[Probate100]

Good Afternoon-I am a genealogist in Los Angeles who works with attorneys on genealogical matters involved with probated estates. You are all sort of correct about this company. An administrator with whom I work has told the story around the Kemp Company and their change to Legacy Probate after the government pursued Kemp Company (and two other firms-companies called Brandenberger Probate and Blake Probate) for collusion...essentially price fixing. Apparently the Kemp Company and the Blake Company were collaborating until the day the government came after them. The government went after a lot of other heirfinder companies, but could only tie one more company into the group of bad guys. My administrator friend said that the third company got screwed--who really cares?
So Blake Probate and Brandenberger Probate eventually closed their doors because of this. The Kemp firm kept their doors open but eventually had to change their name because it was used against them by their competitors.
For what it is worth, it isn't a "scam" usually. These companies have people like me who are working on actual probates that have been filed with the court and/or being handled by an attorney. They charge a percentage and only make money if they are able to get estate funds distributed to their clients. As long as they aren't asking for money up front, there is little to no financial risk involved. Sometimes you can find the matter yourself and contact the administrator directly--pretty sneaky but just desserts for some of these companies.

[Probate100]

Here is the article on the companies at the beginning of the process: https://archive.sltrib.com/article.p...45&itype=CMSID

[despritfreya]

OP got it right. Love his/her due diligence. Having seen it all, all I can say is "stay away".

In response to:

“Contacted about a long-lost relative's inheritance? Hold on a ... https://consumer.ftc.gov › consumer-alerts › 2022/08 Aug 10, 2022 — We have been contacted by Legacy Probate international about a cousin of ours that died without a will. Is this part of the scam?”

You will find this:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-al...ce-hold-minute

And this was only 3 months ago. Wish I was part of the task force going after the bad guys, but, alas, I am just a mere bk attny who, on a number of occasions, dealt with the fall out over such activities. And, by the way, bk does not stop criminal investigations and Sections 523 and 727 are powerful tools as it relates to the civil side, not to mention the long arm of the US Department of Justice/Office of the US Trustee.

Just saying.

Des

[FlowerGirl57]

Hello All: I know this post is a couple years old now, but I just signed up here to say thank you to the posters here for this info. Just last week, we got a voicemail from this Legacy Probate that you mentioned saying that my husband was an heir to an estate. We totally thought it was a scam and didnt call them back, but then a letter from them came the very next day with paperwork asking for 1/3 of this inheritance that he was supposedly due. They called again later that day and were VERY pushy about him signing the papers RIGHT AWAY. Something didnt seem right so I said we would think about it. After that I found this post and found the same information about Legacy Probate and Kemp Associates. Interestingly enough, the next day we got FedEx packages from two more companies about the same thing. Clearly something was up so we called these other companies to see what they had to say. They were both very nice and gave us a lot more information. Their fees were a little different but were both a LOT lower than Legacy too. Sure enough Legacy called AGAIN asking if he had sent in the paperwork yet. I said no, and asked them not to call back. We still haven't decided what we're going to do yet, and my husband wants to check into the other companies a bit more. But I just wanted to say thank you for this post and to let anyone else searching about this know that they shouldnt rush into signing anything with Legacy cause there are better companies out there who aren't as pushy and they have much lower fees too. Thanks again !!