Another Scam

[Sunbelt Asia]

Another Scam.

After you confirm the reservation for your business and say no credit card is needed. They then say could you please advance 8,000 dollars to the rental car company. Wonder who eats at the same restaurant for 9 days in a foreign country?

I get a couple of these idiot e-mails a week..

[email protected]

Greetings Sir/Madam,

I am Dr Allan Wood

I want book dinner for our staffs who will be visiting your city.

Please confirm these reservation

Details of the Reservation:

Date: 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,5th,6th,7th ,8th and 9th July.

No of people:10 people

Arrival times: 6:30 PM each day

Kindly get back to me with your rate and total cost for the 9 days dinner Ok.

Mode of payment.

Credit card only.(I hope you have credit card facilities ?)

I await your swift response.

Kindest Regards,

Dr Allan Wood

Tel +447045749341

------------------------------------

[email protected]

Hello,

I am Dr Hillary Synnoth,from the U.K.

I want to book dinner for i and my group of friends.

They will all come for dinner in your place as from June

17th,18th and 19th, 2008 by 7:00pm each day. They are are 10

in number. Get back with your response if there is

availability in your restaurant so that i can book

immediately with my credit card.

I shall be waiting for your prompt response so that we can

proceed with the payment arrangements.

Kind Regards,

Dr Hillary Synnoth

+447031869905

Wonder if anyone ever falls for this?

Just did a search on the internet. Looks like this has happen before.

http://www.dining-out.co.za/news.asp?AID=76

http://www.scam-email.com/restaurant-scams...vation-scam.htm

You got to love some of the e-mails these days.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

[londonthai]

I often got those email from the nigerian money launderers, as I am renting property in bangkok.

they even don't bother to specify the city they are coming to - those blank email are send to the property owners or restaurateurs to all over the world.

another tip - their premium telephone number starting with 070, which costs £1/minute. The scamer profits from receiving a phone call and to an unwary caller, can extend a conversation for many minutes.

[lingz]

I often got those email from the nigerian money launderers, as I am renting property in bangkok.

they even don't bother to specify the city they are coming to - those blank email are send to the property owners or restaurateurs to all over the world.

another tip - their premium telephone number starting with 070, which costs £1/minute. The scamer profits from receiving a phone call and to an unwary caller, can extend a conversation for many minutes.

Hi there, I am from Singapore, working in food & beverage department too, i have received this mail on the 20th of April too with the same details! We thought this is normal email as we always receive emails for reservations. I found this person very strange as he kept replying me with Hello, Dear, like a 'standard format' too! I got suspicious therefore did a research on internet to my surprise i saw ur post. My friend also mention that since he is booking for his staff, why did he send by yahoo email address instead of company address.

Thank you for posting so that others can take precaution too.

Please see below mail from the FAKE 'Dr Allan woods'

-----Original Message-----

From: Dr Allan Wood [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 11:29 PM

To: info@xxxxXXX (deleted to protect my company)

Subject: BOOKING FOR DINNER........................................M

Greetings Sir/Madam,

I am Dr Allan Wood

I want book dinner for our staffs who will be visiting your city.

Please confirm these reservation

Details of the Reservation:

Date: 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,5th,6th,7th ,8th and 9th July.

No of people:10 people

Arrival times: 6:30 PM each day

Kindly get back to me with your rate and total cost for the 9 days dinner

Ok.

Mode of payment.

Credit card only.(I hope you have credit card facilities ?)

I await your swift response.

Kindest Regards,

Dr Allan Wood

Tel +447045749341

[HowardJohnson]

Sorry I fink I is being a bit stoopid here...

How does this work?

They book for all those meals and then ask you to forward $8k to a car rental company? I don't see the connection or why any owner would even consider doing such a thing.

I've just read one of the links as well and that really doesn't make it any clearer, other than to say they will ask for fees later?

Mai cow jai!

[naka]

No way would I get scammed having read that correspondence

Naka.

[Maejo Man]

If I don't get one of these a day, and another heap telling me how many millions I have won, the day is not complete..

[seagull]

Sorry I fink I is being a bit stoopid here...

How does this work?

They book for all those meals and then ask you to forward $8k to a car rental company? I don't see the connection or why any owner would even consider doing such a thing.

I've just read one of the links as well and that really doesn't make it any clearer, other than to say they will ask for fees later?

Mai cow jai!

I had the same gut feeling as you too HJ, that I am stupid for missing something here. What am I missing ? The sender sents an email to make a reservation, hence the sender ought to be the one making the deposits of which the recipient of the email or provider of the services to be rendered would gets to keep it. So where is the scam ?

[seagull]

No way would I get scammed having read that correspondence

Naka.

Aah ! This one is definitely a scam. But could you imagined that there are people falling for it ?

[seagull]

If I don't get one of these a day, and another heap telling me how many millions I have won, the day is not complete..

Oops! Please ignore my post #8. This is the one that I orginally wanted to reply to.

[Cuban]

Sorry I fink I is being a bit stoopid here... How does this work?

It is just a variation on the advanced fee fraud - they offer payment for goods or services (bad credit cards) than the situation changes and they ask for the monies to be forwarded to a third party for a hotel, car hire, diving course, restaraunt, colored pencils etc and expect you to use your company accounts to pay for that - of course they offer a healthly comission to you because they can not do it directly because they are having a bad hair day or something.

The ideal result is that you pay real money that goes back to them on the promise that you recoup the funds from them later. If you produce a physical product they might well engage you is a few real transactions to establish themselves as a real business then set you up with a huge fake order and the payment disappears when your goods are in transit. "Embassy officials say that 50% of all Federal Express, UPS, and DHL shipments to Nigeria are returned because of fraud and theft." This is a good link to similar sources of information.

My business has received targeted emails like this - fairly easy to spot because of the wording and bizarre requirements as they bend their story-line to try and fit your business or service. Anyone that advertizes online or in a trade directory credit card acceptance and offers an email address contact I would assume is targeted.

I know of one wealthy retired Pattaya resident that was in corrispondance with such scammer for the purchase of 300kg of gold dust before he was educated as to the huge hole in the flow on money to complete the transaction.

The key for most confidence tricks to work is the offer of something that allows you to make money illeaglly - it is the hook that holds you in the deal - if you play your business 100% straight it is difficult to be drawn into the con.

I think the whole Nigerian Scam issue has had such a negative impact on the country I am surprised that they manage to do any international trade these days.

Be careful out there.

[Cuban]

Better link explaining the cash flows and the stings. It were as if they have spent time watching every con trick movie ever made...

[londonthai]

not only those illegit businesses but the genuine ones can fall for the freudsters. For example they offer to pay in advance for an accommodation for 2 weeks, they send you a cheque and the next day cancell their stay due to emmergency. They ask for the money back, minus one night charge, so you send them a cheque with 13 days worth of stay. Only after sometimes it appeares that their cheque was fraudulent

[dave111223]

Hello,

I am Dr Hillary Synnoth,from the U.K.

I want to book dinner for i and my group of friends.

They will all come for dinner in your place as from June

17th,18th and 19th, 2008 by 7:00pm each day. They are are 10

in number. Get back with your response if there is

availability in your restaurant so that i can book

immediately with my credit card.

I shall be waiting for your prompt response so that we can

proceed with the payment arrangements.

Kind Regards,

Dr Hillary Synnoth

I wonder if anyone actually believes this guy is a doctor from the UK.

[Dissolution]

Now, now. You're all taking this in the wrong light.

Just think of all the fun that can be had from replying to these people, while playing along with their game.

Gives you that little something to perk up your day!

[Cuban]

Just think of all the fun that can be had from replying to these people, while playing along with their game.

Indeed there are people that spend their days doing just this - google "419 baiter" or "419 eater". IMO the best response is no response - gives them no feedback about your active email account or errors in their English.

[lingz]

Now, now. You're all taking this in the wrong light.

Just think of all the fun that can be had from replying to these people, while playing along with their game.

Gives you that little something to perk up your day!

We actually did reply to him but during my last mail i purposely ask for his company name etc for 'verification' and from then he did not reply anymore haha... stupid scammer knows that they cant con us anymore. This is how the email looks like.

-----Original Message-----

From: Dr Allan Woods [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 6:27 PM

To: xxxxx

Subject: RE: PAYMENT ARRANGEMENTS..............

Hello Amanda Lee, <--- (THEY COPY N PASTE THE NAME.. PLAIN STUPID)

How are you today?

Find attached my visa card infrmation (They did not provide us with teh last 3 digits of teh creditcard) Charge the card at the confirmation of the charges i will forward you the agent information where you will send my balance of $4,000 Ok

Regards

Dr Allan Woods

[LooseCannon]

With all the heated 'discussions' going on here, there must be a number of TV members that have received this........

Hello,

I am very sorry for you Xxxxxx, is a pity that this is how your life is going to end as soon as you don't comply. As you can see there is no need of introducing myself to you because I don't have any business with you, my duty as I am mailing you now is just to KILL you and I have to do it as I have already been paid for that. Someone you call a friend wants you Dead by all means, and the person have spent a lot of money on this, the person also came to us and told me that he wanted you dead and he provided us with your name ,picture and other necessary information's we needed about you. So I sent my boys to track you down and they have carried out the necessary investigation needed for the operation on you, and they have done that but I told them not to kill you that I will like to contact you and see if your life is Important to you or not since their findings shows that you are innocent. I called my client back and ask him of your email address which I didn't tell him what I wanted to do with it and he gave it to me and I am using it to contact you now. As I am writing to you now my men are monitoring you and they are telling me everything about you. Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? As someone has paid us to kill you. Get back to me now if you are ready to pay some fees to spare your life, $15,000 is all you need to spend You will first of all pay $8,000 then I will send a tape to you which i recoeded every discusion i hade with the person who wanted you dead and as soon as you get the tape, you will pay the remaining $7,000. If you are not ready for my help, then I will carry on with my job straight-up.

WARNING: DO NOT THINK OF CONTACTING THE POLICE OR EVEN TELLING ANYONE BECAUSE I WILL KNOW.REMEMBER, SOMEONE WHO KNOWS YOU VERY WELL WANT YOU DEAD! I WILL EXTEND IT TO YOUR FAMILY, INCASE I NOTICE SOMETHING FUNNY. DO NOT COME OUT ONCE IT IS 7:PM UNTIL I MAKE OUT TIME TO SEE YOU AND GIVE YOU THE TAPE OF MY DISCUSSION WITH THE PERSON WHO WANT YOU DEAD THEN YOU CAN USE IT TO TAKE ANY LEGAL ACTION. GOOD LUCK AS I AWAIT YOUR REPLY to:

[email protected]

It would be interesting to know the success rate of this little gem.