Business Scams
Discussion
My job involves selling industrial equipment to a wide range of markets in many countries. We often get inquiries from completely unexpected places, typically either specific about the product they need, or a bit more general, but at least referencing the type of product/system they need, and asking for help in what to look for.
Aside from all of these, we regularly get completely generic looking e-mails asking for the price list for our products, and shipping terms, and waffling about long term business partnerships and such, but never once mentioning anything about the product/industry/application. This leads me to believe they are bulk sent, and there must be some kind of scam, but I cannot for the life of me think what other than a competitor making a crap attempt at price checking.
Any ideas how this might shaft us?
The one genuine scam we almost got caught out by was a very detailed inquiry with product details and part numbers researched which resulted in a dodgy and very likely to not clear, payment for several times the value being made. The idea on this being that we refund the "mistaken payment", which then gets bounced, hence a free load of cash for our dodgy friends.
We also regularly get the "someone is trying to register your domain name" one.
Any other common scams about?
Aside from all of these, we regularly get completely generic looking e-mails asking for the price list for our products, and shipping terms, and waffling about long term business partnerships and such, but never once mentioning anything about the product/industry/application. This leads me to believe they are bulk sent, and there must be some kind of scam, but I cannot for the life of me think what other than a competitor making a crap attempt at price checking.
Any ideas how this might shaft us?
The one genuine scam we almost got caught out by was a very detailed inquiry with product details and part numbers researched which resulted in a dodgy and very likely to not clear, payment for several times the value being made. The idea on this being that we refund the "mistaken payment", which then gets bounced, hence a free load of cash for our dodgy friends.
We also regularly get the "someone is trying to register your domain name" one.
Any other common scams about?
I did 25 years in overseas sales - a couple of experiences I recall are;
Punters asking to be appointed as your sole agent - thus blocking you for finding the right guy when you get your arse on a plane to have a look... I ended up once in Istanbul with a lad whose small office was full of fan heaters - I was selling ball and roller bearings.
World is full of opportunists trying to find an easy way to make a living or to protect thier markets - I was conned in Panama by a big distributor who impressed me about his company - stopped me having a look at others (always tear out the hotel Yellow Pages!).
Somehow try to meet the people face to face - I had an unlikely contact from Nigeria - turned him down except for "cash only or irrevocable letter of credit"...
He flew to us in Antwerp and paid us in £sterling...as an American company his financial sources were checked out... - slept in our office and flew home next day - did this many times and eventually got upgraded on his airline as a frequent traveller.
Never big bucks...but a really nice gentleman and taught us a lesson in some ways...Cyril Okanu was always a pleasure to deal with.
When he died of cancer we tried as best we could to help his widow carry on the small deals he did for some years...
BOF
Punters asking to be appointed as your sole agent - thus blocking you for finding the right guy when you get your arse on a plane to have a look... I ended up once in Istanbul with a lad whose small office was full of fan heaters - I was selling ball and roller bearings.
World is full of opportunists trying to find an easy way to make a living or to protect thier markets - I was conned in Panama by a big distributor who impressed me about his company - stopped me having a look at others (always tear out the hotel Yellow Pages!).
Somehow try to meet the people face to face - I had an unlikely contact from Nigeria - turned him down except for "cash only or irrevocable letter of credit"...
He flew to us in Antwerp and paid us in £sterling...as an American company his financial sources were checked out... - slept in our office and flew home next day - did this many times and eventually got upgraded on his airline as a frequent traveller.
Never big bucks...but a really nice gentleman and taught us a lesson in some ways...Cyril Okanu was always a pleasure to deal with.
When he died of cancer we tried as best we could to help his widow carry on the small deals he did for some years...
BOF
Edited by BOF on Monday 22 August 18:16
Many years ago, a friend of mine appointed a man, John to be his sales agent, customers would pay directly to my friend, all very reputable and straightforward.
John took a large order in Aberdeen, good firm etc etc; goods delivered, invoice sent.
30 days later credit control phone Aberdeen to ask for payment. No, they said, you sent the wrong product, we phoned John and he arranged to take it back and replace it, we're still waiting for the stuff we ordered.
John, like the goods became hard to find, but later did do some time as a non paying guest.
John took a large order in Aberdeen, good firm etc etc; goods delivered, invoice sent.
30 days later credit control phone Aberdeen to ask for payment. No, they said, you sent the wrong product, we phoned John and he arranged to take it back and replace it, we're still waiting for the stuff we ordered.
John, like the goods became hard to find, but later did do some time as a non paying guest.
Guy rocks up at the front of factory asking for the Boss.
"Hello mate, I wonder if you can help us out. We've got an Artic' broken down a couple of units down and we desperately need to get the load shifted, It's going to be a few hours till they can get a fitter out but if we can borrow your forklift to get the stuff off we'll be alright. Obviously we'll see you alright and there's a drink in it for you"
Looks out front and there's a large lorry parked up, bored looking driver, back doors open, pallets of "stuff" and a few blokes stood around scratching their bits and bobs. Sums up the risk, and says to the Guy
"I can't just lend you a Forklift for insurance reasons in case you damage someone or something and obviously if I take a driver away from what he is doing it'll be costing us"
"Yea, yea completely understand, if we call it fifty quid could we borrow the forks and the driver for say twenty minutes?"
"Ok but no longer than that"
"oh thanks Guvnor, you're a star, look here's the cash right now, really grateful" etc etc
Anyway Driver & Forklift unload lorry and come back about 15 minutes later exactly as promised, apparently it was seamless and he'd take off four pallets to the back of a Transit, then as he unloaded number 5 another Transit would appear from nowhere, the driver actually commented that he wished we could unload lorries that smoothly everyday. Result all round.
Fastforward to four days later and:
"Err there's two Coppers downstairs asking for you by name and asking if they can have a word"
"Ok that's fine show 'em up"
"Hello, Mr Gullible? I'm DC Whoever this is my colleague DC My Mate can you tell us, is this your signature?"
"Errrrr No, that looks nothing like my signature"
"But this is you full name and shipping address?"
"Yep, that's all correct"
"and did you receive a delivery of 26 pallets of George at Asda little girls pajamas aged 5-7, two days ago?"
"Errrrrrr No, what on earth would we want with them, you can see what we do here? Oh hold on"
Ding.....That'll be the penny dropping then.
The scam is, find a small sized factory, find a Director's name, bribe someone in the docks to change a delivery manifest to new name and address (don't know enough this bit to know how that is done). Lorry drivers are normally blind to what the load contains so don't care. Meet lorry outside at due time, claim to be name on manifest, sign paperwork, unload lorry using forklift and driver from delivery address, all looks legit, bugger off and let Mr Gullible take the heat for his £50 spot that he'll have put in his pocket. The contents of the load are frankly immaterial it's just a load, but pretty much any load is worth money and they'll worry about selling it later.
"Hello mate, I wonder if you can help us out. We've got an Artic' broken down a couple of units down and we desperately need to get the load shifted, It's going to be a few hours till they can get a fitter out but if we can borrow your forklift to get the stuff off we'll be alright. Obviously we'll see you alright and there's a drink in it for you"
Looks out front and there's a large lorry parked up, bored looking driver, back doors open, pallets of "stuff" and a few blokes stood around scratching their bits and bobs. Sums up the risk, and says to the Guy
"I can't just lend you a Forklift for insurance reasons in case you damage someone or something and obviously if I take a driver away from what he is doing it'll be costing us"
"Yea, yea completely understand, if we call it fifty quid could we borrow the forks and the driver for say twenty minutes?"
"Ok but no longer than that"
"oh thanks Guvnor, you're a star, look here's the cash right now, really grateful" etc etc
Anyway Driver & Forklift unload lorry and come back about 15 minutes later exactly as promised, apparently it was seamless and he'd take off four pallets to the back of a Transit, then as he unloaded number 5 another Transit would appear from nowhere, the driver actually commented that he wished we could unload lorries that smoothly everyday. Result all round.
Fastforward to four days later and:
"Err there's two Coppers downstairs asking for you by name and asking if they can have a word"
"Ok that's fine show 'em up"
"Hello, Mr Gullible? I'm DC Whoever this is my colleague DC My Mate can you tell us, is this your signature?"
"Errrrr No, that looks nothing like my signature"
"But this is you full name and shipping address?"
"Yep, that's all correct"
"and did you receive a delivery of 26 pallets of George at Asda little girls pajamas aged 5-7, two days ago?"
"Errrrrrr No, what on earth would we want with them, you can see what we do here? Oh hold on"
Ding.....That'll be the penny dropping then.
The scam is, find a small sized factory, find a Director's name, bribe someone in the docks to change a delivery manifest to new name and address (don't know enough this bit to know how that is done). Lorry drivers are normally blind to what the load contains so don't care. Meet lorry outside at due time, claim to be name on manifest, sign paperwork, unload lorry using forklift and driver from delivery address, all looks legit, bugger off and let Mr Gullible take the heat for his £50 spot that he'll have put in his pocket. The contents of the load are frankly immaterial it's just a load, but pretty much any load is worth money and they'll worry about selling it later.
Only a minor one - but easily repeatable if staff aren't alert to it.
Someone calling my sites, pretending to be me (not sure how they know my name or which sites are mine - could be someone inside the business even), saying I'll be there in 20-30 minutes, but I've run out of credit on my phone. Can they put a credit through on the payment terminal, and I'll pay for it when I arrive.
Running total is under £100 so far, but it has happened to sites elsewhere, with colleagues names being used.
Someone calling my sites, pretending to be me (not sure how they know my name or which sites are mine - could be someone inside the business even), saying I'll be there in 20-30 minutes, but I've run out of credit on my phone. Can they put a credit through on the payment terminal, and I'll pay for it when I arrive.
Running total is under £100 so far, but it has happened to sites elsewhere, with colleagues names being used.
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