Hi Everyone

I run a small IT Services Company in North Yorkshire as well as a couple of
shops. We have just narrowly avoiding losing £5500 due to a scam which seems
to be doing the rounds up here. It would appear that a couple of other biz
have actaully lost money with this scam. Heres roughly what went on:

Got a request for a quote for a decent sized order (for us 40 P4 Processors
is a good order!) from someone down south.

We instantly had a gut feeling something wasnt quite right so insisted we
would only supply on cleared funds. Gave him our bank details so he could
pay by BACS.

About five days later he rings and says money is on our account can we sort
his order ASAP. We check and sure enough there is money. So we start to get
his order sorted thru our suppliers. This was late thursday before bank
holiday weekend. the 'customer' wanted them ASAP even if it meant a saturday
delivery. We tried all we could with our suppliers to get the order ready.
They all couldnt muster enough to fulfil order for even Saturday so we had
to go back to 'customer' and say we couldnt do it for then.

He gets a strop on and says hes going to look somewhere else.

Tuesday after Bank hols he calls us to say he can get them same day on
tuesday, cancels order with us and wants his money transferring into an
account which he specifies in a fax. So we arrange BACs straight away.

Wednesday comes and so does a notification from bank that it wasnt a BACs
that customer made but a stolen, forged cheque that he has paid directly
into our account at a branch of our bank. Needless to say it has bounced!!!

PANIC!!!...We call bank and ask for BACS to be stopped and luckily save our
cash!

We have now had three police forces call following this group around the
country and it looks like it was our neck of the woods this Bank Hols.

So just a friendly warning to you all out there! If you want any further
info then Email me.

Regards

Simon Cooney
Complete Business IT Services Ltd