I receive countless emails from prospective "clients" asking for my services and these "clients" are usually from Nigeria, or China. I normally perceive these contacts to be scams and would summarily ignore them. The latest attempt was, in all honesty, quite sophisticated. This so-called client was seeking services for debt collection. Not only did it use the name of a business that appeared to actually exist–it had a seemingly sophisticated website with cheesy effects (1st red flag)-- it provided a list of actual customers that supposedly owed the "client" money for services rendered. The client, Simyi Auto Parts Industry, stated that they had no authority to pay my requested retainer fee due to communist issue, but one of its customers would issue payment to me and I would then deduct my retainer and send the remainder to them. I asked specific questions as to which customer would be issuing payment and how I was selected to be their counsel. I received no responses to those questions. A week later, I received a check made payable to me in the amount of $250,000.00 by overnight courier and the sender information was barely legible. I knew it was a scam at that point. The client sent emails asking if I had received the check and I advised them that I had to authenticate the check before depositing it. The client, by way of a person named "Joe", telephoned me inquiring about depositing the check and I repeated what I had said by way of e-mail. "Joe" then stated that he has conducted business with the issuer of that check for ten years and there should be no problem. Common sense dictates that if he had been doing business with this customer for that length of time, there would be no need for intervention from counsel. Further, if the customer had that kind of money to pay his creditor, why would he issue payment to me? I went through the exercise and presented the check to the bank for authentication and the bank officer indicated that the account from which the check was drawn did not match the name of the remitter of the check. In addition, there were eight fraudulent checks drawn on the account already. In sum, I would have NEVER deposited that check without verification. I emailed Simyi Auto Parts and advised them that the check was fraudulent and needless to say, I never heard from them again.
Welcome to Scamwarners. I'm glad you spotted it as a scam. It has caught a lot of lawyers.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1578
If you can post the email (less your personal details) that refers to the fake site, we should be able to get it closed.
