Features Business intelligence Contracting
Be alert for scam emails

NEWS HIGHLIGHT

Be alert for scam e-mails
A purchase and shipping scam that was first reported in the Southwestern United States may be rearing its ugly head again.

April 27, 2010 – A purchase and shipping scam that was first reported in the Southwestern United States may be rearing its ugly head again.

The scam first surfaced in September 2006 among reports from glass shops in the southwestern US after a man under false pretenses called several glass shops to order quantities of glass with stolen credit cards and asking that the product be shipped to a destination in Africa. The caller insists the glass shop contact a specific international shipping company with details of the product to be shipped and then the shipping company charges the glass company, through a money order, for the cost. However, this is just a front because the so called freight company is involved with the scam.

The point of the scam is to trick the glass company into paying for the freight believing this would be reimbursed, but the scammer, who is also behind the fake shipping company, then cashes in and disappears, taking the money with him while the credit card company’s insurance covers the charges applied to the stolen credit card.

It appears that the scammers have now moved onto using emails for the initial contact. Keith Pynoo of Kawneer has forwarded to Glass Canada two suspicious emails that were received by two of his industry contacts. They are reproduced below. We have removed all personally identifying text from these emails. This is because, although they have the hallmarks of a scam, they may in fact be legitimate.

Please use caution in all of your dealings. If an order seems too good to be true, it probably is.

From: XXXX XXXXXX
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2010 11:49 AM
To: XXXX XXXXXXX
Subject: Order Glass..
 
Am Rev. XXXX XXXXX  With regards to your company ,i will like to order Glass,below is the specification Below.


Best Regards

XXXX XXXX
Global Bible Church (Presbyterian)

Impersonating clergy and/or claiming to represent a church are common tactics in email scams. A search on Google reveals only two results for "Global Bible Church (Presbyterian)." One is from a site that Google has flagged as potentially harmful. Typically, the only reason Google will flag a site in this way is because visiting it will download malicious software onto your computer. Scammers can then use this software to remotely access your computer. The other result is from someone who received a suspicious email and wanted to know is anyone else had received something similar.

From: Dr. XXXXX XXXXXXX
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 5:15 AM
To: XXXX, XXXXX
Subject: order
 
Dear Sir/Madam,

I want to place an order for some items and i want to know if you do carry them.



Dr. XXXXX

At first glance, this email looks a little better. However, note the use of the title "Dr." Next to impersonating clergy, this is probably one of the most common tactics for email scammers to use. This doesn't mean that you should never deal with clergy or medical professionals. However, the use of these titles should raise a red flag.

Another clue in both of these emails is the addresses from which they were sent. Although we have deleted the addresses to protect the identities of the sender in case they're legitimate, we can tell you that both were web mail addresses, and one was a string of gibberish. Most people seeking to do legitimate business will use either a business address or their home email account. If you see an address that looks like this: 729839208@gmail.com, then it's perfectly reasonable to suspect skullduggery.

Various resources are available online to help you determine when an inquiry is a scam. Making use of them may cost you a bit of time, but save a lot of dollars in the long run.

To see the original stories published on this topic, please click here and here .