How to prove a scam transaction?

100% scam, you are correct. There are scam warner, scam-busting, romance scam websites where you can find examples of that scam, victims of that scam, ask questions and find something to prove to your dad that this is a scam.

There is no banker at some overseas bank who suddenly found a domant account with millions yet can't find a single relative of the account owner who managed to die suddenly in a plane/train/car accident or whatever natural disaster was just on the world news and didn't leave a will. Now this highly educated executive who writes like an 8 year old, must have a foreign partner to help him move this newly discovered wealth to any bank in any other country before his government seizes the cash.

There is only one scammer trying to steal your dad's hard-earned money by using a fake story, stolen pictures, stolen information on a natural disaster and copied links from a legit website, all while pretending to be several different people all with free email addresses.

The next email was from one of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "minister/banker/barrister" and has demanded your dad pay for made-up money transfer, document, certificate, stamp and bank fees, in cash, and only by Western Union or moneygram.

Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.

Now that your dad has responded to a scammer, he is on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate your dad from his cash. He will send your dad more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of inheritances, dead millionaires, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your dad's email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send him dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, your dad sending them his cash via Western Union or moneygram.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

If you google "fake next-of-kin scam", "fraud inheritance bank Western Union scam", "fake Ghana refugee scam", "fraud romance scammer" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims of this type of scam.

Foreigners cannot inherit property or money in China. If your father is not a Chinese citizen who lives in China, he cannot get any money. That would be against the law This scam has been around for more than 10 years Google inheritance scam and you'll find millions of examples

Sorry dear, but your father must be very very naive to believe that a total stranger would leave millions to him. Whoever sent the mail is simply after your father's bank details for fraudulent purposes.

Talk to your local Trading Standards and see if they can get him to see sense.

Is there a contact e-mail on the letter? There usually is, and it's usually hotmail or similar. Ask your dad if he thinks a major bank would really operate without their own domain name...

Best of luck!