The family of the late Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has said that a mysterious will produced this year is a “scam” by a “stranger” attempting to target his $500 million estate.
Hsieh died five years ago, aged 46, from complications due to smoke inhalation in a house fire and his death was ruled accidental.
The tech entrepreneur’s family said that Hsieh did not leave a will and his estate has reportedly been managed by his father, Richard Hsieh, ever since.
Now the family is battling over Hsieh’s estate after a “complete stranger” with “no ties” to the entrepreneur claimed to find a will, according to a court filing.
In the filing obtained by KSNV-TV in Las Vegas, a man named Kashif Singh claimed he found the purported 2015 will in his deceased grandfather’s possession.
“Scams come in all shapes and sizes,” the document said. “In this case, the scam is in the form of a document being touted as the purported will of Anthony ‘Tony’ Hsieh.”
“The document was allegedly found by a complete stranger, many years after Tony’s death, in the possession of the stranger’s deceased grandfather, Pir Muhammad, a 91- year-old Pakistani man with no known ties to Tony,” the court document continued.
“The document was allegedly signed by Tony, but expert analysis reveals the signature is forged.”
Hsieh’s family hired experts to examine a copy of the alleged 2015 will, who found there were “numerous unexplained differences” with the handwriting, which led them to conclude it was forged.
The family also claimed that there was no evidence that Hsieh attended the will signing in 2015, which made no sense given he “kept extremely detailed calendars of all his activities.”
Attorneys for the family have reportedly attempted to contact Singh, who has a mailing address in Wyoming, but have never received a response, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hsieh ran the giant online shoe retailer Zappos, which was sold to Amazon in 2009 for $1.2 billion, for almost 20 years after joining it in 1999.
During the final year of his life in 2020, during the pandemic, Hsieh struggled with mental health problems and battled alcohol and drug addiction, according to the WSJ.
A court hearing over the will is scheduled for Thursday in Las Vegas.
