Author: Olly

Ok, so this identity theft scam really made me chuckle. To fill you in, my business partner and I sit next to each other in the office, so this scam was busted at the first hurdle. It was a VERY cheeky direct email and for larger companies – if done right – it could have slipped the net and resulted in the scam working!

Anyway, it was morning on the 17th of November 2017, and my business partner got this email – my business partners name and email have been obfuscated of course;

On 17 November 2016 at 09:19, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Dee ,

I need you to make a faster payment transfer . What bank details will be needed for that?

Regards,
Olly

Again, straight away he turned to me like – WHADDAFACK – so we decided to waste some of the guys time. Here’s how the conversation panned out.

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Dee <Dee@work-email.uk> wrote:
Hi Olly,

For what mate?

Dee

Like always, we wanted to try and extract as much info out the guy as possible.

On 17 November 2016 at 10:20, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Ill bring you in on it later. How fast can you get the transfer sorted?

Regards
Olly

Cheeky b**tard.

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:21 AM, Dee <Dee@work-email.uk> wrote:
Straight away, just need to know what company you want me to pay.

Send me the invoice.

Dee

Again, we wanted some company names, details so we could uncover the scam details.

On 17 November 2016 at 10:26, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Oh great!

Kindly send £18,980 to this account

Acc Name; [company name removed]
Sort Code ; [code removed]
Acc number; [number removed]
Royal Bank of Scotland

I will forward you invoice once i am available to do so,but please go ahead with the transfer and let me know once its done.

cheers

Regards
Olly

Jesus christ. How much??? (NB: We rang RBS and reported that the account was being used for malicious gains later on.)

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Dee <Dee@work-email.uk> wrote:
What is this for?

Do you not think a purchase of this size should have been discussed prior?
Dee

Again, we knew it was a scam from day 1 – but if we played along maybe he would give us some golden nuggets and we could expose the trickster.

On 17 November 2016 at 10:33, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Dee

I dont really appreciate you sweating me and asking me all sorts of questions like im a kid. This is an investment for us. You will know when the time is right and would be impressed and proud of me. So kindly respect my privacy and let me conclude this deal. Let me know once payment is made.

Cheers

Regards
Olly

Haha wtf. This guy is on gear or somat. As if a business partner would pay £18k out for something without discussing it with the other.

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:38 AM, Dee <Dee@work-email.uk> wrote:
Chill out man, no need to fall out!

I will go to the bank at lunch, I will only be able to transfer half. Unless I know what it’s for, you know what our accountants are like, they need paperwork.

Dee

Poker face.

On 17 November 2016 at 10:43, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Dee

Im not trying to fall out at all. I just want this sorted . Do the half and when i send you invoice kindly do the balance straight away. Please try to do this before 1pm. Can you do it before 1pm?

Regards
Olly

I think he wanted it done before 1pm?

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:44 AM, Dee <Dee@work-email.uk> wrote:
I’ll do my best, what shall I put in for the payment reference?

Or I can pay the full amount via paypal straight away as you know that is where most of our cash is? If that is better?

Dee

We dont hold money in PayPal, but we were trying to catch him off guard to see if he may give us his PayPal or something – anything to snag the ba**tards actual real info.

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:48 AM, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Ok Dee. Hold let me see if they accept paypal.

Regards
Olly

Oooo.

On 17 November 2016 at 10:57, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry Dee they do not have paypal and i have been instructed to pay at least £12,000 today. Can you make this happen at lunch time mate?

Regards
Olly

“Mate”? He’s learning the lingo! Mate is the first thing Dee referred to me as in his first reply. We were impressed to his dedication to the scam haha.

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 11:03 AM, Dee <Dee@work-email.uk> wrote:
I will not be able to do that before lunch, why do they need this so quick?

Is your mobile banking app not working as you could do this yourself. I do not have my banking key at the moment its in the other office.

Dee

We dont have another office. Also, Dee was trying to test how he would react to this as this *could* be a feasible reply if Dee had genuinly believed it was me on the other end.

On 17 November 2016 at 11:07, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Dee

I have to pay them quickly to secure my ongoing contract with them. I cant make the payment as i do not also have access to my online banking. Can you not go into the branch to sort this as agreed before? I dont know why you are making this a big deal when its not. Just let me know if you can sort this out or not please.

Regards
Olly

We envisioned his cyber cafe credits running out, and him starting to sweat a bit. Hahaha.

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 11:12 AM, Dee <Dee@work-email.uk> wrote:
I am just pushed for time today mate, I am in lectures all morning and my online banking key at back at the office. Will have to be this afternoon.

I shall be back after 2pm, fetching pizza on the way actually. What topping do you want and could you ask the guys too what they want?

Dee

Curveball.

On 17 November 2016 at 11:16, Olly <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
I dont think you get it Dee. You need to treat this as a priority. Why can you not go into a branch before coming to the office? I need this sorted by 1pm. Just go to the damn bank and sort this and quit worrying about pizza. I would do the same for you if you wanted something done urgently. Please just go to the nearest branch and sort this. Thanks!

Regards
Olly

Ahahaha by this point we envisioned him reaching boiling point hahaha oh the lols.

We decided we had work to do, so sent him this;

Dee <Dee@work-email.uk>  17/11/2016
Hi Tellez Delgardo,

Nice try, no cigar, gringo.

Dee

He replied, and totally let his guard down.

On 17 November 2016 at 11:22, Kinlock Magowan <tzgardo@gmail.com> wrote:
lucky son of a bitch

It was a very direct scam, he was pretending to actually be me, and he would have got away with it too if it weren’t for those meddling kids…

Seriously though, i’ve not seen something like this before, where the scammer has done his homework and tries to impersonate a partner in a business. Not sure if the email is his or one he hijacked but hopefully we rattled his cage and wasted enough of his time to stop him scamming someone else that day.

Hahah nice try, loser.

If you’ve got a similar identity theft scam or had an email from this guy then please comment below or fill out our submit scams form – and as always, share this post with your friends so they are scam wise, online!

Until next time! 🙂

NB sorry for my lack of posts recently, guys. Been swamped at work and have a busy home life but i’m trying to catch up with stuff. Got another post coming SOONNNN!

I usually blog about online scams, but this is an offline scam you can fall in to SO easily, it’s actually quite scary!

Smart Parking Ltd

My friend was driving in a town centre and fancied some lunch. He saw a Toby Carvery, pulled into the car park shared with sofa shops etc, and had a rather nice lunch. Usually in these car parks you have to be visiting a business or have actually bought something – but lunch at the Toby Carvery firmly ticked this box!

He came out to the vehicle to find a yellow ticket on his windscreen claiming to be a ‘PCN’ and a bloke dressed up in a traffic warden costume next to the vehicle.

It is perhaps important to digress slightly here and say that Smart Parking Ltd acted illegally in calling the ticket a PCN. Only councils and government departments are allowed to use the word PCN. In reality Smart Parking’s PCN is just a speculative invoice. 

The ‘PCN’ and the idiot dressed up as a traffic warden claimed that the vehicle was guilty of “obstructive parking”. The ‘warden’ took my friend to the front of the vehicle to reveal he had parked no more than FOUR INCHES over a crooked and broken white line that had random criss-crosses in it. “That path is for a wheelchair and you have blocked it”, said the idiot parking man in his thick Nigerian accent.

Of course, in reality this couldn’t possibly have been for wheelchairs as there was a curb and the end of the ‘path’, a flounce of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, neither was it properly marked. Nevertheless the ‘warden’ told my friend “just dispute it, they always cancel them”.

So my friend wrote to Smart Parking Ltd, and said this was clearly nonsense and he wouldn’t be paying the ‘fine’ of £90 (reduced to £45 for good behaviour – how nice of them!) and asked them to cancel it. Of course, Smart Parking Ltd wrote back saying in fact that it was valid and demanded payment.

Smart Parking Ltd even stupidly sent a picture of the terms and conditions displayed on a car park sign. However, there was a problem with this… The photo of the sign was taken in an indoor car park – yet the vehicle was parked in an outside car park. Duh!

Smart Parking Ltd’s letter droned on about how they did no wrong and how anyone who enters the car park agrees to the terms and conditions – yeah right!

Unfortunately for Smart Parking Ltd, the friend they tried to scam is a legal genius who eats scammers for breakfast and smashes spurious legal claims to pieces. Smart Parking Ltd don’t know this at this point….. but they soon will 🙂

A few weeks went past a letter arrived from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, although of course it wasn’t a letter it was a NOTICE (lol). This letter threatened if the ‘debt’ of £136 was not paid it would be transferred to the “legal team for their consideration” – frightening!

…The letter was ignored.

Then another letter arrived from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, this time it claimed it was the “final chance” to settle the case with Smart Parking Ltd. It even kindly reduced the amount from £90 to £136; no seriously, I have that the correct way round!

Then he received the original letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd again, now demanding £160.

And another…

And another….

And another…..

And another……

Then another letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd. This time it was a NOTICE (lol) of “intended court action”. It still demanded £160, although Debt Recovery Plus Ltd has never stated how the amount has nearly doubled from the purported ‘PCN’!

Then another NOTICE, which was back to the original letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, and demanded £160.

And then another…

It’s perhaps worth stating at this point my friend, being the legal genius he is, told Smart Parking Ltd he did not wish to have his details passed on. He also said further contact from Smart Parking Ltd and/or their servants/slaves or agents would be considered harassment. 

Six months later and 12 letters later from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, a NOTICE (lol) arrives from Zenith Collections. It claimed to be “Without Prejudice”, although unclear as to what it was without prejudice to. It said that this time Smart Parking Ltd would accept £100 for the £90 ‘debt’, which inexplicably was claimed to have increased to £160.

Laughably, this letter said at the very bottom in extremely small writing you cannot read “Zenith Collections is a trading name of Debt Recovery Plus Ltd”. No surprise there then.

Suspiciously, the following can be noted between the two letters:

• Debt Recovery Plus Ltd have a trading address of Dukinfield (Manchester).

• Zenith Collections have a trading address of Ashton Under Lyne, you guessed it, also in Manchester.

• Despite supposedly trading from two different offices in the Manchester area, both ‘registered offices’ for Debt Recovery Plus Ltd (trading as Zenith Collections) and the actual Debt Recovery Plus Ltd are in London, W1H 1DP.

• Debt Recovery Plus Ltd and Zenith Collections both use 0208 numbers to call for ‘payment’. Odd for companies clearly based in Manchester!

• A 2 second Google search of W1H 2DP has as the first hit “Virtual Office Services in London” – well, well…

Give these scammers their due, they do like a registered office in London to look big and professional.

Then he received a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd being Debt Recovery Plus Ltd this time.

And then another…

And this is where it gets really exciting! A letter from Gladstones Solicitors! We all love a solicitors letter as they are a usually full of shite and overly threatening and aggressive – and usually when cases to get to Court, the Judge tells them off for it!

This time the letter claims the £160 is owed. But of course fails to explain how the claimed debt has risen from the original £90 ‘PCN’ to £160. That is, by the way, a breach of the solicitors code!

The letter claims that a payment should be made to Debt Recovery Plus. But hang on… the top of the letter says the ‘Claimant’ is Smart Parking Ltd? So how can Debt Recovery Plus Ltd instruct Gladstones Solicitors on behalf of Smart Parking Ltd? As my friend points out, they can’t.

Debt Recovery Plus are not Solicitors and have no legal right to practise litigation on behalf of Smart Parking Ltd. It should be Smart Parking Ltd instructing solicitors themselves, and of course if they should, seek the sum of £90 not the £160.

More fundamentally than that, Gladstones Solicitors should never have taken instructions from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, as they (DR+) have no legal entitlement to work on behalf of Smart Parking Ltd.

Anyway, as to the rest of Gladstones’ letter, it was complete BS. They threaten that defending the claim their client (presumably, actually Smart Parking Ltd) may make, will increase the cost – which is basically another tactic to unjustifiably threaten and intimidate someone.

They claim that costs are likely to increase the debt, which may be: Fixed Costs, Court Fee(s), Judgement Costs and even Warrant fees and costs.

Once again this is complete rubbish to write in a pre-action letter. The costs they refer to are ONLY recoverable if they WIN the case. So these threats are simply more nonsense to make you pay a company who has no legal entitlement to act for the other company whose “debt” it actually is.

Of course what Gladstones do is try to threaten you in to paying, and make all kinds of stupid claims to stop you from defending your case. This is a breach of Solicitors Code and if you receive a letter like this you should report it to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Basically Gladstones is yet another dodgy solicitor firm, and seem to get away with it through threatening people.

My friend is baiting Gladstones and Smart Parking a bit more, before whacking a massive injunction against them in the High Court and suing them for harassment.

However if you have received a ‘PCN’ from Smart Parking, it is advised you follow the POLPA appeal process, and ‘do it by the book’. There are plenty of websites for appealing these ‘PCNs’ on the internet.

If your appeal is refused and you are being harassed by Smart Parking Ltd, Debt Recovery Plus Ltd or Gladstones Solicitors over a debt you do not owe (or do not think you owe), contacting a solicitor is advised, as Gladstones on occasion have been known to issue vexatious claims.

Hopefully this article is of use and watch out for scammers when you park your car in retail outlets!

P.S I wonder how long before I’m threatened with defamation action again…..  

I dont know what is happening recently, but the last few scams that have been brought to my attention have been SMS scams, not the usual email scams. And the last two have been sent to me!

This PayPal Scam is 100% going to catch some folk out. I’m quite impressed by the fact they managed to get a domain with PayPal in it, and also get an SSL certificate issued as that should have been flagged up due to the URL containing a copyrighted word.

I got a text from +441252560473 (which strangely isnt a mobile number here in the UK – Google says its the area code for Aldershot) and it read;

I visited the site on an unused browser and the homepage is harmless – convincing, fully responsive and links out to the PayPal website, but harmless;

I thought I would have some fun and typed in a dodgy email and a made up password – here is me thinking that would be the scam (as if I had put my real info in, they could log in and buy stuff with my PayPal) but oh no – how wrong was I! That was just stage 1!

The next page scared the crap out of me as it has been done so well, so convincing, as you type the card details in they appear on the card, and when you click in the security code box, the picture of the card spins round using some jQuery or something. This is possibly the most professionally made scam Ive ever seen.

I thought I would have more fun by putting a load more fake info in telling the people on the other end I thought they were assholes – pressed submit and it came back saying that my card was invalid, and I needed to try again!!

What that basically means, is this PayPal Scam is trying to either confirm my details are correct by authorising them like an online shop would – or right there and then they were trying to charge my card for “an amount” of money.

Wow.

Sophisticated, well designed…. This IS going to earn some scammy a-hole a load of cash!

I visited it on Edge and it didnt say anything about it, but when I visited in Chrome and Firefox they both flagged it up as a dangerous site, which is good;

If anyone visits it on a Mac let me know what Safari says about it.

Please share this article to the people in your life that you feel may fall for this type of PayPal scam – these scumbags disappear into the night with your money if they get it so lets try and stop it happening in he first place.