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New Scam or so I have discovered

I received an email a month or so ago from a prospective client. His coroporation is based in London and he had business in Atlanta for a few months and would require a Virtual Assistant to help him while he was here.

I sent the proposal/contract and everything was running along smoothly and on time..

I received the cashiers check that I required (upfront payment), however it was for a bit more than our agreement.

He stated it was an oversight by his accountant located here in the states and had asked if I would be so kind as to send him the overage via Western Union. At first I agreed and stated no problem. Then my brain kicked in I looked at this cashiers check closely, everything look legitimate right down to the water marks!!!!!

I decided to call the bank it was drawn off from to verify that this was infact a check from their bank.It is not..

These people whoever they are have created many of these checks and have sent them all over the US. I am one of the lucky people who just knew better than to even deposit it.

The initial email I received was:

Hello, my name is Todd Mayer and I am from London .

I run a consultancy firm here with registered address 544 Oilskin Road off Anted BLVD, SE15 6HH .

One of my high net worth client is due to arrive in the United States in few weeks time and is interested in your services. Can you tell me a little more about yourself and your mode of operation?

If interested, please reply

Thanks

Todd

Posted by Lisa Spruck on 06/25/2007 02:15 PM

Comments (50)

scam cashiers checks, theif, london, mayer, steal, bankrupt

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50 Comments on New Scam or so I have discovered

JUN

2007

I was so excited to expand globally into the European market that I let my guard down some. He responded to my emails as any other client who is not within 5 hours drive time would. He knew the right answers and did a very good job convincing me that he was a real client with a real company.

Until I received the Cashiers Check...It could have hurt me badly if I had deposited the check and refunded the over payment.

If it seems to easy just hit delete... I have noticed they are starting to personalize the email hoping to draw in unsuspecting people.

This did not seem to easy. This all was legit very similar to other clients requests so I did not question this. I have a dear friend who has a client who travels to the states for business 6 times a year and he pays her quite well and has referred her to other associates. I just assumed this was my break as well.

I am pretty good at picking up on a scam but this one showed all the signs of being legit. Until I received that check!! Just seems as if these scam artists are getting better at what they do best.

According the bank the check was drawn on this is not the first check that has been reported and they are having a hard time tracking this person down. Even the postal service is in on the investigation.

I allotted time for this person and his needs so now I am back to the scratching posts

Be thankful they are not calling you - I had one of these call me at 12:30 a.m. duh like he is legit

Lisa- It is a good thing you figured it out before it caused a major problem. Good eye!!!

I turn my office phone off before I go to bed. I had a client who would call me at 2:00 am to run a brain storm by me. I learned the hard way.

How do these people get away with this? He did call me when I did not respond to his emails and left me several voicemails. We had a family emergency up North and traveled out of time quickly. I had no obligation to inform them as we were not to start until July 1, 2007. Now I know why the large amount of voicemails.

Lisa, this is a variation of a scam that has been going on for years, it's actually been featured on 20/20 awhile back, I'm surprised people still fall for it.

marketing with closing gifts, realtors, garaughty.com

Lisa~ Yes, I get several of these emails a month. We all need to do just as much due diligence in finding out as much as we can about potential clients as they would do about us, I hope.

Holy cheaters! I'm glad you didn't get duped. I'm certainly going to be on the lookout. Actually, I hope they contact me...I have some surprises for them.

JUN

2007

Lisa, I've received several variations of these. I used to save them so I could compare the stories and laugh at how creative they are. But now, I just delete them!

SEP

2007

Hello
I got this mail today:
Sent: Sun 9/30/07 2:15 AM

Hello, my name is Todd Mayer from London . I run a consultancy firm here with registered address 1225 Packman High Street, SE15 8HH . A client of mine who is due to arrive in the United States in few weeks time is interested in your translation services. Can you tell me a little more about your mode of operation? If interested, please reply Thanks Todd

Thank you for your warning which will save some time for me.

Regards,

Kurt from Switzerland

Lisa - At this point I am not sure why anybody would believe anything remotely like this from an email. People should be smart enough by now, unless you are living under a rock, to fall for this stuff.

Lisa, this has been blogged about several times on AR. But, you know they're so crafty and tireless that they look legitimate. Good thing that you investigated further, unfortunately some still fall for it.

OCT

2007

Dear All,

I am a Chinese Translation Consultant. AND I just got the exact same email from "TODD" as Kurt from

Switzerland on 9/27! SO now I know its a SCAM! Is anyone gonna turn him in? Thanks guys for your honest input to save us future victims!

Thomas Shou, Sr. Chinese Translation Consultant

www.sinotransintl.com

OCT

2007

I too received the same email. I'm a translator, too.

I answered the email since I often get this type of email inquiries.

Here's what he wrote back immediately.

I have to say that something didn't sit right with me from the beginning.

Glad I found this blog.

Thanks for the email.

While Mary Morgan (my client) is in the United States she will have series of documents 
that need to be translated. This could be done online definitely without any form of meetings.

Will like you to know if you can do this and pricing for that. She is a stock broker and has  
some deals with some clients that require translation of about 600 pages of documents and 
looking at we are looking at approximately 50-90 words per page.

Please address and give me a quote based on this.

Todd

OCT

2007

I also work for a translation company and received this email. In respnse to Bill Gassett's email...translation companies receive emails like this EVERY day and that is what makes this email seem so real. Todd made a few mistakes that made me question the email. I have quit responding to him so it will be interesting to see if he/she tries to pursue it. It could be fun to mess with this person.

It does seem like the postal service or police should be informed. If he is mailing fake money orders that seems like mail fraud. I have sent this to my boss and I want to pursue it. Seriously if Todd tweeked his methods just a bit, I believe MANY translators/interpreters would be out a lot of money. Obviously I won't go into that on line because the chances that he is aware of this blog are pretty high.

George

LOL, I got one from him asking me if I could preform a home inspection for his client that was moving to Columbus Ohio. Todd sent me a check for $100 more than the inspection. And like Lisa, I checked with the bank to confirm it. The bank and FBI now have it. Next!

I've contacted Yahoo about it, and the customer care person has advised me to tell people to file Abuse Reports to Yahoo so that they can take action against this character.

Here's what to do:

Find their help page at the URL below.

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/spam

Click on

"How do I report Abuse to Yahoo?"

Click on the words "Yahoo Customer Care" towards the end of the paragraph.

It will take you to the Abuse Report Form. Fill this out and send it.

The Yahoo Customer Care person I talked to told me that the more reports are filed, the quicker they can take action against him (i.e. shut down his account.) Todd's Yahoo email address on the mail I received was

tmustmk1@yahoo.com

Yuko

OCT

2007

I got something similar, but I started asking a lot of questions, and the person disappeared. Good for you that you verified the information!

I've had a bit of fun with such scam artist. I posted a few of the checks on my blog, they do look real:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/199990/Beware-Rental-Scams-Operating

Interesting I came across your post. I have been receiving alot of scam emails through AR lately, as I am sure most everyone else has. We need to keep a watchful eye out.

Yuko,

Thanks for the above information concerning Yahoo. Every little bit helps.

OCT

2007

He is still out there. Now he is interested in the interpreting services ;-))

Hello, my name is Todd Mayer from London . I run a consultancy firm here with registered address 1225 Packman High Street, SE15 8HH . A client of mine who is due to arrive in the United States in few weeks time is interested in your interpretation services. Can you tell me a little more about your mode of operation? If interested, please reply Thanks Todd

Watch out and inform friends and colleagues.

OCT

2007

Thank you everyone - I just had one in the mail today ... .

Valeska Nygren

OCT

2007

I am so glad I found this blog. I got the same email today asking for interpreting services in the US. Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences.

OCT

2007

Ditto here. I am also an interpreter and got the same e-mail today. I will let my fellow translators know about this scam. I appreciate this blog.

CocoPuff

OCT

2007

I got an email from Todd the other day. As I always get email inquires from my potential clients, i didn't suspect this one at first. I told him that I only provided translation service, not interpretation. Then the guy replied my email saying translation was exactly what he wanted. He asked me to quote and I did that. Then he wrote back saying he has convinced his client to pay much more than I quoted and the extra payment would be his commission. I became a little suspicious and then decided to check online. Fortunately I found this blog. Thanks.

NOV

2007

My message from Todd arrived today, November 11, 2007 and below is a copy:

From: Prime Solutions Limited <alfredlombado@yahoo.com

Hello, my name is Todd Mayer from London .

 I run a consultancy firm here with registered address 1225 Packman High Street, SE15 8HH .

A client of mine who is due to arrive in the United States in few weeks time is interested in your Secretarial  services. Can you tell me a little more about your mode of operation?

 If interested, please reply    Thanks

Todd Mayer

I did not respond to this individual because I did some research first and could not verify the business or the individual, and then I found this page and that confirmed that this was another scam.  These scams are a nuisance as they take up so much time to confirm whether the business or person is legit.   These types of scams are also very difficult to recognize as scam for those of us who make first contact with new customers via e-mail.  If I ever have any doubts about a customer, I just won't respond back, so if there are any legitimate ones I have ignored, they are also indirectly being affected by this kind of spam.

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for posting the e-mail. It's good to see exactly how the scammers are communicating. I'm glad you were able to protect yourself.

It's too bad we have to suspect inquiries for our services but it's the way things are. It helps to keep this in mind when requesting information from service providers. They are going to have to check us out as much as we are checking them out.

DEC

2007

I received this email today from Prime Solutions Limited at alfredlombado@yahoo.com.

Hello, my name is Todd Mayer . I run a consultancy
firm here with registered address 6353 Cronin Street,
SE15 6JJ.

A client of mine who is due to arrive in the United
States in few weeks time is interested in your virtual
services. Can you tell me a little more about your
mode of operation?

If interested, please reply

Thanks
Todd Mayer

Thanks for your post Lisa. I couldn't find out any information about this company and thought to do more research before I responded. This seemed like a scam and you and others have confirmed this. I'm glad a came accross this blog. Thanks again.

DEC

2007

I am a UK VA and received one of these emails some weeks ago - he's clearly not doing his research properly!

In any case I wanted to tell you of a couple of useful websites you can use:

The first is for checking UK companies claiming to be registered as Limited or Ltd http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/e602e739b1bf95f7059d6241860dae4b/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo and select enhanced index. If the company isn;t listed then they are not a UK Limited or Ltd company.
The second is the postcode check - http://postcode.royalmail.com/portal/rm/addressfinder;jsessionid=WVQTGEP1RNODOFB2IGIUQ3Q?catId=400145&pageId=pcaf_a_search&gear=postcode - all you have to do is put the postcode (Zip Code) e.g. SE15 8HH in the field marked Enter a postcode and hit search. If nothing is found then the postcode is false

You can use these tools for any prospective client.

Hope that helps.

Todd is still there being his/her regular skum bag. As you see below apprently he/she surfs the net trying to find suckers as he emails below.

Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 21:54:32 -0800
From: tmustmk2@yahoo.com
Subject: virtual services
To: tmustmk2@yahoo.com

Hello, my name is Todd Mayer from London. I run a consultancy firm here with registered address 702 Old Kent Road, SE1 8JU A client of mine who is due to arrive in the United States in few weeks time is interested in your virtual services. Can you tell me a little more about your mode of operation? If interested, please reply Thanks Todd Mayer

DEC

2007

Todd is out there now saying that Mary Morgan is a real estate broker. He says that Mary will pay $100/hour and asks that he get $50/hour and the his fee get sent to him as soon as the money order arrives. He says that Mary will send 60% retainer for 2 months worth of work. Lots of money!! Thanks for alerting us about him. I knew something was fishy but haven't spent much time answering his emails so not much lost.

DEC

2007

I too received an email from Todd Mayer, and it appears that he is now targeting published Virtual Assistants. Thank you so much for the heads up everyone.

DEC

2007

Yes - I got it today and I'm a Virtual Assistant. I'm glad I decided to check him out before replying. Thanks!

DEC

2007

This is an old & well-known scam, but there are still a lot of people who fall for it, so it's good that people publish it again. I'm glad that you were careful.

JAN

2008

I just received one of these and I immediately supsected something. However he is going by "Ted" now! He spoke of Mary Morgan as well. What a joke!

I too just received his email concerning Mary Morgan's travel to FL. Following is his second email.

"Thanks for the email.

While Mary Morgan (my client) is in the United States
she will need your services in Word processing,
transcription, Power Point presentations, scanning,
data entry, proofreading, database management, and
Internet research over the next 2 months. She will be
arriving your city in about 3 weeks from now.

Will like you to know if you can do this and pricing
for that. She is a real estate broker, 56 years of
age.

Please address and give me a quote based on this.

Ted"

I am so glad that I did my research! Thank you everyone for your posts.

It's good that you listened to your Inner Voice and didn't deposit the check. So many people fall for similar scams.

JAN

2008

The way these scams work is they send you a larger check than you expected, and ask you to refund the overage. You deposit their check, then send them your good check for the difference. Weeks later you get a letter or statement from your bank saying that their check bounced, and you are left holding the bag.

MAR

2008

About a month ago we received an inquiry about one of our properties that was for sale from a Frank Parker in London... He noted that he represented a group of Investors who were former government officials, ...

We only exchanged two e-mails before we told him that we had turned him to the British Authorities and we have never heard from him since...

Two days ago we received an inquiry on one of our properties from Mr. Don Kelvin with an e-mail address of donkelvin7770@yahoo.com... which looked OK until his follow up yesterday talked about him being on a field assignment in London and that he felt that he needed to make a deposit on the property and that his agent would contact us about a property inspection... This reminded me of Frank Parker's e-mail that mentioned a property inspection...

I got my own e-mail address wrong in my comment... I was so mad !

MAR

2008

I received the *same* email just a few minutes ago. I did a search on his email address and found all of you! Also, you can track emails that are sent to you. When I tracked this one, it originated in Lagos, Nigeria - not London. I also looked to see if my website had received any visitors recently from London, and it had not.

Just some tips on how to identify these crooks early on!

APR

2008

I have received similar emails several times. It is incredible what some people try to do to get your money. Let's all keep each other informed. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Jay Skinner
Skinner & Associates Realty

APR

2008

I think that the most distasteful thing about this scam is that it is targeted at sole proprietors who in all likelihood would be quite gravely affected.

Any prospective client that is asking you to process funds through your own bank account (e.g make payments for them or refund them money back form a check) should be avoided
If they are from overseas check,check and re-check their credentials (look for things like email addresses being derivatives of domain names and not some sort of free address service like Yahoo or Gmail). Contact the company directly and check the contact's credentials also.
Follow your instincts - if something doesn't seem right walk away.

Lidia Griffin

JUL

2008

I am always appalled to hear about scams.... so I started this new group:

Real Estate Fraud, Scams, and Ponzi schemes REPORT THEM HERE

Please feel free to post any scams you come across I think that we should help everyone out by making everonle aware all the "bad stuff" so they don't fall victim to these scams.

We all have to do our part in help the public by making with aware!

JUL

2008

I also had a one scammer who kept calling me. Several times a day and at all hours. It got a bit scary. I am very careful now and skeptical of anything that seems too good to be true.

AUG

2008

Glad you didn't get caught up in this any further.

Lidia offers excellent advice. It's becoming more and more common for these schemers to pass off bogus checks for too much money and get a legit refund. A friend of mine almost got hustled by someone allegedly wanting to buy his timeshare. When the international cashiers check arrived it was for $1,200 too much. The buyer also claimed a clerical error and requested the funds be returned.

AUG

2008

Report, delete and block. That's the only way to effectively handle these criminals.

SEP

2008

Why would anyone consider refunded money from a check before it clears?

NOV

DEC

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