Not very scientific, but could be of interest

[jonjel]

Another scam methinks

To those of you who are in business this could be of interest.

We have all had every kind of crook try and part us from our money, but this was a new one on me.

I received and enquiry from Dubai, went through all the normal costing and quoting exercise and duly received an order. Not a staggering sum, around £15K. As with all new customers it is pro-forma including shipping. All agreed so a pro-forma was issued.

No problems from the other end and around 5 days later we received and e-mail to say the payment had been issued. And landing in our bank came nearly £70K.

Then received a panic type e-mail, and a prone call saying the accounts department had made a dreadful mistake and paid us the sum that was due to go to another supplier, and vice-versa, so could we please take the sum they owed and return the balance to them as a matter of urgency.

Rats got sniffed and memory bells were jangled.

The funds that landed in our account are of course uncleared funds, and I am 99% certain they never will be. And if we had paid them the ‘balance’ we would have been around £55K out of pocket.

[speakertoanimals]

Seems a nasty scaled-up version of the used car scam:

www.used-car-advisor.com/car-buyer-scam.htm

I suppose in the used car case, you MIGHT be suspicious that someone you've never met is willing to send you a cheque for MORE than the required amount (but perhaps the effect is that you feel they trust you, so you are less likely to suspect them?), since in the used-car case, it seems quite common that they explain beforehand why the cheque they send will be larger than required. They didn't do that in this case.

[alanseago]

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!

[jonjel]

I think with a car sale scam one would be pretty suspicious of a buyer from abroad buying 'blind' but agree, similar in many ways.

I think where this particular one (mine) is a bit more sophisticated is nothing at all was in any way suspicious until the money landed. E-mails were articulate and on a letterhead of an organisation which we checked out and seemed legitimate.

The negotiations had been going on for about 6 weeks and at one stage we were even asked if we could better the price. All perfectly normal. Even if that had not been so we would have regarded it as a pretty low risk as we would get the money before shipping.

And I wonder how many would be or have been taken in? A much higher proportion than the sharing in a fortune from an African leader e-mails, or being informed you have won a lottery for which you never bought a ticket.

I think we just have to accept that there are people out there who have only one ambition in life and that is to steal from you in any way they can.

[principled]

I think where this particular one (mine) is a bit more sophisticated is nothing at all was in any way suspicious until the money landed. E-mails were articulate and on a letterhead of an organisation which we checked out and seemed legitimate.

Jonjel. Did you run your mouse over the return email address? I'm not much of an Internet wizkid, but I was told to do this to see if the "click here" return address was the same as appeared on the screen.
eg: email address appears as "blogs @barclays (or other legitimate company).com, but when you put your mouse on it, the actual address "underneath" is entirely different.
However, I suspect in this instance the scam was much more sophisticated.
P