Avoid The Scam – Don’t Accept Overvalued Cheques
If you’re like me, you’ve undoubtedly received a variety of scam emails requesting money for the assistance of an ex-Government official, usually asking for your account details to transfer a large amount of money into your account! Unfortunatley a lot of people believe these emails, and fall victim to fraud. Your best chance is to just ignore any email that requests your financial information or wants to transfer money into your account as you can place a bet that it will be forged or fraudulently obtained. There are a range of other types of scams that occur, and there’s one in particular which can seem quite innocent, but is actually another scam and relates to business to business transactions, particularly small businesses…
I received an email the other week from an individual claiming and acting like a genuine customer. They requested a quote, and instantly said they would like to go ahead with the order (which was a bit strange as they hadn’t even asked any questions). Then I received an email from them saying that the cheque would be in the post, HOWEVER, this is where I began to thought it was a scam.. The ‘customer’ said that unfortunately his ‘PA’ (yeah right!) had mistakenly written the cheque out for ten times the amount I was charging! I was asked to cash the cheque and then send one back for the surplus amount – by this point I’d already told the scammer that he would have to re-send a cheque for the correct amount.
If I was to actually cash the cheque in, it would have bounced within a few weeks as it would probably have been fraudulent funds. By that time I could have sent the scammer the surplus funds, and when his original cheque did bounce, I would be seriously out of pocket. So whatever you do, don’t accept overvalued cheques, and also don’t send your financial details or bank account information (even on your pro forma invoice) to customers who you don’t really know.
Written by Chris Pangburn.
