This scam and similar ones goes beyond wedding professionals.
If you have a shop, or sell product on or offline you can be a target. Service providers are targets! So far we are aware of consultants, dj's, photographers getting these letters I am sure other segments of our industry are targets as well. These are a few reports from wedding professionals.
First signs to look for, if it seems to good to
be true it most likly is:
Here are a few of the scenerios:
Hello,
My name is dalton white,i work with Construction Company and i
am a from of united kingdom,the company that i work we have a big contract
in FINLAND to build a petroleum refinary for the country,there i meet my
finance named Susan george and we are planning to have our monumental or
chestration wedding on the 28st april 2007,so we are looking for the best
wedding planner that will plan the great day and i think i have get the right
one,and i want to let you know that we want a mini-wedding of about 40-50
invities in your location,so you will help to get a beffiting wedding in
you area ,a photographer,wedding cake,videographer,mekaup and hair bride,DJ
and Reception Dinner that is all,the total budget for the wedding is £10,000
including your chargers to make up £12,000 for the whole wedding and
i want to let you that my company will be responsible for the payment of
the wedding as thay have promise to send the payment to you by instalment
to make things easy for us,the details of the wedding is not much as am
finland to discuss in details and the have agree to send the first payment
of £4,000 to start the plannig and we are coming to the state 27th
of FEBRUARY 2007 by then the contract will have ben finished.So i want you
to give me the information where you want my company to send the cheque to.The
name that will be on the cheque and full contact address.....,state.....,postcode.....,cell
phone.....,home phone.So i will be very greatful to read to your response
very soon. Regards I have seen and heard of several others that
were attempted by companies in and out of Lagos Nigeria. Here is the warning:
I received an e-mail from a man in "Germany" who wanted to set up a wedding
for his son here in Colorado. He gave me sketchy details of what
he wanted. It sounded real. After a couple of e-mails, he said that he'd
hired his vendors from the UK (being the photographer and videographer)
and when I received the check I was to deposit it and send each of them
$3000. (red flags going up!)
The cashier's check was sent by a client here in the US. After about 4
weeks, many e-mails and several phone conversations with his "son", I received
the check. I had the bank check it and they said they agreed with me that
it was bogus. The next day I phoned the "issuing" bank and they confirmed
it to be counterfit.
I e-mailed this man that I had received the check but it would take at
least 15 days to clear. They actually called me and asked that I write these
two checks on my account so they could get the vendors here for the "wedding".
I informed them this wasn't going to happen.
Long story short- Be VERY CAREFUL if you receive anything from out of the
country. This is originating in Nigeria. Don't get caught because if the
check is deposited and you write any checks against it, you are responsible
for them.
Sincerely,
Tanya W. Porter
Tanya is with WEDDINGS, ETC. LLC and can be reached at
tporterweddsetc@hotmail.com
I am working on locating the fraud divission for the FBI and will post that when it is found.
On the bottom of the WesternUnion.com page is a link that covers
this. See http://www.westernunion.com/info/faqSecurity.asp
Another email from one that was approached
follows via another method of getting to you:
I wanted to add a small bit of information regarding the Nigeria fraud.
Please also be very careful of Internet Relay Calls. They were originally
designed for the hearing impaired. However, these scam artists are
using them to get in touch with people in the bridal business. They also
are not
only from Nigeria they are working out of the Netherlands, and Holland,
with more countries to come I am sure I have had this happen three times this
past summer alone. They want to order large quantities of wedding merchandise.
When you refuse to work with them, they can become very
belligerent. This info came courtesy of cyndi@ladyslippergardens.com
Thank you Cyndi.
A wedding Professional sent me this additional
information
I was involved in the scam you described as
a wedding photographer in Rhode Island. Everything on there end was done very quickly and professionally. My
bank was told that there was doubt on my part that the check might be fradulent--yet they did not put a hold
on the check.
Everyone needs to be aware that the banks--which should
be flagging these
checks, are often completely negligent in their
responsibilities. Because the bank told me the check was good,
I forwarded the money to a third party.
It was only a couple days later that the check came back as bogus.
BEWARE--the banks
are not taking much inititive to check on these bogus checks so you have to
be extra vigilant. After initiating a law suit, I received my
money back from
the bank--but they fought it for months. dennymoers@cox.net
I am sure there are many other variations on this scam. Please, be viligant.
The old axiom still holds water, if it sounds too good to be true it usually
is bogus.
If you gt an email similar and you want to confirm the email is a true job
please email me at ScamCheck@Afwpi.com
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