E-mail scam artist poses as Fidelity fund manager

BOSTON: The e-mail claims to be from a financially savvy Fidelity Investments fund manager who has "secretly extracted" money from the world's largest fund management firm and will pass it along to you for a small fee.

Hear any alarm bells ringing?

Boston-based Fidelity Investments is working with authorities to find the author of a mass e-mail sent to computers around the world that claims to be written by a Fidelity fund manager.

"The e-mail, written in broken English and with bizarre claims, is a particularly obvious example of one kind of scam that some online would-be criminals employ," Fidelity spokesman Adam Banker said.

In the e-mail, a person identifying himself as Williams Smith boasts he "secretly extracted excess maximum return capital" from one of Fidelity's funds.

He goes on to tell Fidelity investors he is ready to divide his gains with anyone who is ready to send him a little money up front.

A small number of investors reported the bogus message to Fidelity, Banker said. He added that since the e-mail sender had no connection to Fidelity, none of the investors' funds were in jeopardy.

Privately held Fidelity invests more than $1 trillion and employs about 183 fund managers around the world who are all listed on the company's Web site.