News
That ‘free grand piano’ email wants £300 before any piano exists
Guardian News and Media quotes Sykes & Sons, a Stockport piano workshop, putting the typical delivery fee demanded at between £100 and £500.
Key facts
The email offers a free grand piano from a woman whose husband has died One recipient paid a £300 delivery fee and received nothing Sykes & Sons says the delivery fee typically runs £100 to £500 Unlike most scam emails, it contains no link or attachment
Reported by
Guardian News and MediaThe Guardian reports on an email scam offering a free grand piano from a widow who says her late husband has died and she wants the instrument to go to someone who will care for it. If an email offers a free piano and then asks for a delivery fee, stop replying and delete it.
Guardian News and Media, in its report on the scam, notes a detail that separates it from most scam emails: there is no link to click and no attachment to open. The entire approach runs through conversation. That is what makes it convincing, and it is also the detail a reader can use to catch it before paying anything.
How the story unfolds
The email describes a grand piano in excellent condition, sitting in storage, free to a dedicated student, teacher, family or church. It asks the recipient to forward it on, which is how it reaches someone who runs a school or a church hall. The sender's email address uses the woman's name, so it reads as personal rather than mass-sent. Replying starts a real back-and-forth about her husband and the piano, and her story holds up under questioning, because the questions are ones she has answered before.
The piano, she eventually says, is in storage a couple of hundred miles away. Delivery needs to be paid for first. Sykes & Sons, a piano workshop in Stockport quoted by the Guardian, says that fee typically runs between £100 and £500. The Guardian's own example has someone paying £300. After that payment, the conversation stops. There is no piano, no delivery, no further reply.
What the sequence shows
The trust in this scam is not built by a fake website or a spoofed number. It is built by the reply itself: every message sent back and forth makes the next request feel more reasonable, because a stranger who answers questions about grief and gratitude does not read like someone running a script. The payment request only comes after that rapport exists. A reader checking for a scam at the point of first contact will find nothing wrong; the only safe moment to stop is before any money changes hands, regardless of how long the exchange has run or how plausible it has become.
Forsyth, the music shop and piano dealer quoted in the report, says it has been contacted by people partway through this process who wanted advice before arranging delivery, and that it was able to stop them before they paid anything. Others it has heard of paid and lost the money, because, as the business puts it, there is no piano. Sykes & Sons adds that the pattern to notice is a valuable instrument, often a Yamaha or Steinway grand, offered by a stranger who cannot let anyone view or collect it in person, with money wanted upfront for delivery. Churches, schools and individual musicians have all been targeted by it.
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What to do
- Bin or ignore emails offering a free piano or similar high-value item from a stranger.
- Do not click any link the email contains, if it has one.
- Report scam emails by forwarding them to the relevant reporting address.
