An advanced form of scam I almost fell for last week. Thread poster: Javier Moreno Pollarolo
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Hello all,
Last week I got a ProZ mail from a person asking me for a quote, without any additional information. I asked this person what was the subject about, and they sent me a PDF file of a generic contract. I gave them the quote and, right off the bat, they responded me asking me for my address so they could send me the check immediately. That raised a flag and I decided to ask them to call me since I wanted to be sure they were... See more Hello all,
Last week I got a ProZ mail from a person asking me for a quote, without any additional information. I asked this person what was the subject about, and they sent me a PDF file of a generic contract. I gave them the quote and, right off the bat, they responded me asking me for my address so they could send me the check immediately. That raised a flag and I decided to ask them to call me since I wanted to be sure they were legit. The email address was a gmail address, [email protected], and the email name specified the name of the person, a REAL person who worked at a REAL company. They replied and they claimed they called me but I didn't answer (false: My cellphone didn't report any phone calls nor voice messages), and that raised a second flag. I googled the name of the person and her company and it showed she existed, currently having a high rank position at a big company in the U.S. I decided to contact the company myself and, yes, they got back to me saying this person NEVER sent me any emails.
The scammer didn't bother to write correctly, never put their phone or company name in the email, and was desperate to send me a check, asking me for my address. I personally have never seen anything like this: A scammer using a real person's name and position to do harm.
Several things made me doubt at first and forced me to contact the company via a different channel:
1. The IP address of the sender (thanks ProZ!) reported the scammer was in Washington DC. The real person's based in Portland, OR.
2. The reply timestamps showed 9 hours of difference from OR timezone (i.e. Eastern Europe or Africa)
3. The lack of professionalism of the scammer.
Here are the emails the scammer wrote:
1. "How much is your cost price per worlds"
2. "Here is the attached document to let me know the total price"
3. "I can only make payments with check and I want you to give me your payment name and address to mail out the payment check to"
4. "Have been trying to call you but not going through.Do you accept my method of payment? Let me know so that i can instruct my manager to prepare your check because am really busy for now".
Be on the look and trust your instincts. Be sure the email sender has an email with their company domain or, at least, a phone number you can call to.
Thanks to ProZ.com for including the IP address of the sender in their contact feature. And thanks to the people at Premier Packaging for getting back to me.
Javier.
[Edited at 2022-01-25 05:07 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Barbara Carrara 
Italy
Local time: 07:56
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
| Hardly an 'advanced' scam | Jan 25, 2022 |
Hi, Javier
I wouldn't call yours an 'advanced' scam. The way the email you received was 'styled' in exactly the same way as most of the overpayment scams around, with the vaguest possible information about the 'job' at hand, no refs. to language pair, poor grammar (in an email supposedly coming from an EN-speaking potential client?), payment by check only... And I bet the signature block was also 'attractive'.
As to the scammers using real people's names, it isn't diffi... See more Hi, Javier
I wouldn't call yours an 'advanced' scam. The way the email you received was 'styled' in exactly the same way as most of the overpayment scams around, with the vaguest possible information about the 'job' at hand, no refs. to language pair, poor grammar (in an email supposedly coming from an EN-speaking potential client?), payment by check only... And I bet the signature block was also 'attractive'.
As to the scammers using real people's names, it isn't difficult to find those on-line, associated with real companies. And 'your' scammer did just that, searched for companies listing their managers' names and used one as bait.
But if using a real person's name/company name combo in a gmail account isn't a clear enough red-flag sign I don't know what is (I mean, if contacted by, say, [email protected], would you fall for it?). And you could have spared yourself the hassle of contacting the real company.
Stay safe. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | We all need to be safe | Jan 25, 2022 |
Thank you Barbara! For me it is a duty to contact the real person and tell them they are being spoofed/ impersonated. It is not a waste of time making sure people are not being scammed or impersonated. The reputation of the real person could have been damaged in the future.
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