New Scam, Same As The Old Scam…

Got an email from someone wanting to buy some water valves the other day.

We’ll BACS pay you they say.

Ok.

Few days later and we get this…

Crooked Gits wrote:We have just completed a team meeting this morning and we identified
that we have mistakenly overpaid you; in the sense that the total payment
of £1750 was paid into your account yesterday rather than the actual
£750 you quoted. Therefore we have actually overpaid you the sum of
£1000.
The £1000 overpaid you is also due for payment of other materials and
equipment we have purchased elsewhere and the supplier also expects
the payment today. We therefore kindly request you to send us a refund of
£1000 to the account information provided below;

CARTER OUTSOURCING LTD
BANK – BARCLAYS BANK
ACCOUNT NUMBER – 50755206
SORTCODE – 205534
AMOUNT – £1000

Please advise as soon as the refund has been made and we shall arrange for
the delivery.
Thanks for your usual support and I hope to hear from you sooner.

We queried the reference to trace the payment. No response.

Then…

Crooked Gits wrote:I trust you are well!!
Kindly advise and update us on the refund of over payment.
Cheers,

Turns out that the payment was in but, no BACS reference or anything so it couldn’t be traced.

Thing is, it wasn’t a BACS payment that was made and, the amount was wrong as well. It was a giro credit paid by cheque to a bank branch.

The cheque was stopped because “Company Ceased Trading”. Funds removed form our account.

Glad we didn’t make the payment back to the Barclays account that we were asked to “refund” because the cheque was from a Halifax account that was under a different name.

Watch out for Carter Outsourcing but, that’s not the only name that this sort of scam can be run under.

Watch for the tells, gmail etc mail addresses, poor grammar etc all play into it and, if you don’t pay attention, well…

K.