Not quite sure the right place for this.
We are all familiar with scams regarding consumers. Everything from “The prince of Slabobia needs youn you to help move 12 billion dollars to a U.S. account”, to the old get rich quick schemes and investments.
There are also scams that target smaller companies seeking funding. In the pre-internet days they would contact a company by phone, letter or even in person offering large investments in your “great new business”. They’d go through a make believe due diligence and then promise a huge investment. Then the final catch, they just needed a “lock up” or “commitment fee” to finalize the deal. Seen that a few times because I am often involved in raising capital.
Now, through the internet they use a new version of the old scheme. They contact a company by email in the name of a legitimate business. They just slightly alter the email address from the real one. The company receives the email, looks up the company on the internet and finds a very legitimate investment house or brokerage. Then it becomes the same deal with a double whammy. They collect all your financial info as part of their “due diligence”. Then of course they want the lock up fee. But now they have the extra bonus of identity theft.
I just helped (hopefully) bust one of these deals. They contacted us in the name of a large asian company. They used the presidents name and address and an email address so very similar to the real one. I was pretty sure it was the beginning of a scam and found the bogus email to be registered in Nigeria (infamous for internet scams). I was able to contact the real company and they were very grateful and said they would pursue the scammer(s).
We are all familiar with scams regarding consumers. Everything from “The prince of Slabobia needs youn you to help move 12 billion dollars to a U.S. account”, to the old get rich quick schemes and investments.
There are also scams that target smaller companies seeking funding. In the pre-internet days they would contact a company by phone, letter or even in person offering large investments in your “great new business”. They’d go through a make believe due diligence and then promise a huge investment. Then the final catch, they just needed a “lock up” or “commitment fee” to finalize the deal. Seen that a few times because I am often involved in raising capital.
Now, through the internet they use a new version of the old scheme. They contact a company by email in the name of a legitimate business. They just slightly alter the email address from the real one. The company receives the email, looks up the company on the internet and finds a very legitimate investment house or brokerage. Then it becomes the same deal with a double whammy. They collect all your financial info as part of their “due diligence”. Then of course they want the lock up fee. But now they have the extra bonus of identity theft.
I just helped (hopefully) bust one of these deals. They contacted us in the name of a large asian company. They used the presidents name and address and an email address so very similar to the real one. I was pretty sure it was the beginning of a scam and found the bogus email to be registered in Nigeria (infamous for internet scams). I was able to contact the real company and they were very grateful and said they would pursue the scammer(s).
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