Is there no place these scummy douchebags won’t go?

I got this email from my work earlier in the month and I was shocked at the angel these guys had gone into this scam, its the same as the traditional 419 nigerian scams but this one uses an old BBC article from the Iraq war to try and legitimise the scam. It starts;

Dear friend,

How are you doing? Thanks for showing interest.I am a senior British military officer , I served in Iraq during and after gulf war respectively and presently I have been deployed for a peace mission in Afghanistan.

Thanks for showing interest? When did I do that then?

During our mission in Iraq 2003, we found stashes of hidden cash that ran into millions of dollars and before returning the money we found to Iraqi government we kept some money which we shared among those that went for the operation and I got about $12.5 million dollars and the money has been secretly and safely kept in a security company because of fear of being questioned about how I got such money because our salaries and details as soldiers is well known.

Lol and a “Security Company” wouldn’t ask where you got $12.5 million dollars from??

Now that American government are pulling out troops from Afghanistan , I want to resign and go into business ,so I want this money to be moved to your country and invested in your care in a profitable business in your country so I contacted you because I need a capable person that will assist in receiving the money then when I return home from Afghanistan, I will travel to your country to meet you in person so that we can discuss in details which area we can invest . You can go through this link below my friend to get a clear understanding of what I am talking about.

Hmm;

Ooookkkkkkk…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2988455.stm

The link does indeed go to a page on the BBC site that talks about US troops finding a shed load of money in Baghdad – the article is from 2003 though! (Wow, how crap was the BBC website in 2003!?)

I need your confirmation that you are able to manage these huge funds.I contacted you because I am looking for a capable foreign partner whom I can entrust this money in his care for investing in a profitable business as I don’t have idea of any business because I have never been engaged or involved in any business activity before.
Take care and hoping to hear from you as regards to my letter of proposition.

I’d love to know why they think im a “capable foreign partner” as Im historically pretty terrible with money management haha.

All in all, a very typical 419 scam, but with a different twist. Dont fall for it peeps.

I’ve replied to the guy of course, but hes not replied yet.

It was sent from;

David Hook – davidhook411@yahoo.com (reply to address was the same)

I will let you know if I hear back!

Stay ScamWise, peeps!

I have recently written about a scammer called Stuart Paskin, he runs a number of businesses and websites including The White Tent, and has built his entire “empire” up by moving from Digital Agency to Digital Agency scamming them to do work, then announcing the work wasnt up to scratch and moving onto another company.

The White Tent is their current, main website that we worked on in 2016 and the start of 2017 – and from the second we spoke to Stuart at The White Tent we knew he was going to be trouble.

The White Tent had been made in Opencart which is our eCommerce platform of choice – the tasks he asked us to do were all within our capabilities and we were able to complete them as and when we were asked to complete them, apart from on a couple of occasions where things were delayed due to requests from customers who pay us a monthly retainer and get higher priority support. As we started working on things we noticed more and more things that just didnt seem to sit well with us, he had admin accounts set up for 3 or 4 different companies who all seemed to specialise in Opencart development and was always talking crap about the people who had worked on it in the past.

We sent Stuart Paskin our first invoice and heard nothing apart from more demands of work he wanted doing, and we actually got passed over to one of his little henchmen Stewart Stalker – Stewart made excuses for Stuart as to why invoices were not being paid (not in the office, also used a family member’s illness as an excuse) and we were reassured time and time again that they would be sorted.

Halfway through our “Business relationship” Stuart drafted in a lovely lady to do PPC and Social Media marketing, and then started to get her to chase us for updates on tasks he had asked me to do – I later found out she was also not paid a penny for any of the work she did and found it extremely upsetting and demoralising to have to call people like myself and chase us for updates – knowing full well we weren’t being paid on time for our work either.

Anyway – time went on and we did bit and bobs on The White Tent as Stuart and Stewart continued to dangle a carrot, promising we would be paid “if we just…” – but we were growing increasingly frustrated about the whole situation so we started doing some digging.

We found a forum post by someone called Paul over on the Opencart forums, and our bad feeling suddenly turned into a sickening feeling as we realised we were the victim of a serial scammer. I reached out to Paul and his experience was pretty much the same as ours – he also told me of about 9 other people he had spoken to who were in exactly the same boat. Horrifying!

We managed to get 80% of our invoices paid and cut ties with The White Tent, but there are some of the people before and after us that are still struggling to get paid for the brilliant work they did.

A word of warning to anyone doing due diligence on this company or these scammers – STAY AWAY FROM THEM!

If you’ve been screwed over by these conmen then I would love to hear your story. COmment below or fill out my contact form.

Stay Scam Wise, people.

Stuart Paskin – Serial Scammer!

Never before have I actually encountered someone with such a blatant disregard for peoples livelihoods as Stuart Paskin, from Lux Level Ltd. I have heard of Serial Scammers, but never witnessed one first hand.

We were contacted by Stuart Paskin – the conman – in November of 2016 as he wanted Opencart eCommerce work doing and that’s something we have specialised in, in the past. I spoke to him on the phone and he seemed like he may run a decent company and could have been someone we could have worked with reasonably well. However, from the 3rd or 4th phone call with the guy I started to dislike his tone and how he seemed to expect a premium level of “realtime” service from us pretty much straight away.

He would frequently call at 6pm and 7pm and even called me in the evening on a Sunday once, as the site (which we had not made, and did not host) got hacked and he *needed* it sorting there and then.

Everything he ever rang about was always the most important, business critical thing in the whole world. He expected me and my team to drop everything we were doing whenever he called. When we were working on his stuff, half the time he wouldn’t even know what he wanted and he continually moved the goalposts or “dangled the carrot” with comments like “ok thanks for that, can you now just…” which any web or IT professional will know is the start of the dreaded scope creep.

After a month of working for him, we sent our invoice which he instantly challenged – I had not clocked my time on the phone to him but it was upwards of seven hours, but in the rush to get the bits done for him I just didnt clock my time properly and I made him aware of this when he was questioning the invoice that I’d sent. From that moment I decided to clock my time fully and make sure I charged him the full amount of time we spent on his website(www.thewhitetent.co.uk)

The next month things went from bad to worse. Stuart just could not seem to understand we worked for multiple people, and whenever he rang with something that was “business critical end of the world I need it now” and I said we would look at it as soon as we could, either he would get someone that worked for him, his business partner Stewart Stalker (yes, thats his real name) or he would call himself, after 15 minutes from submitting the original request – asking if we had done it yet and how much longer it would be before we would have it done. It was infuriating.

I did give him a few times/dates when things would be finished and we did miss the deadlines, but this guy was a brand new customer and no matter how he spoke to us or how big a customer he claimed he was going to be – we already had big customers and im afraid they would always have come first.

We got through a second month taking his constant phone calls and emails, and I had to put up with him talking trash about my team and my company and how things were never right and always had bugs. The web industry and websites that you end up inheriting from other people often come with problems. The website we worked on had been with at least 3 development companies before us and everyone does things differently so we would often add things and it would knock other things out, or we would do the exact task and because we were unable to read minds and didnt do something he never asked for, but assumed we would just “do” – he was an impossible person to work with.

I sent his second invoice – despite his first one STILL not being paid – and he really kicked off this time. I put my hours on the invoice but didnt charge for them initially as by this point I wanted to get my staff members time and our direct costs paid for. I can live with a few hits to my own hours (even though I shouldnt have to!) and I knew by putting them on the invoice he would just throw his toys out the pram and vanish into the ether. I also wanted my first invoice paying so didnt want to rock the boat too much!

From this point we had a few heated phone calls and then they went quiet on me and stopped getting back to my invoice reminders. I went in one morning to finish something off and my access had been removed, and Stuart eventually got back to me to say they were getting someone else to finish the work off. I wasn’t upset to be honest, I just wanted my invoices paying and when I eventually got through to him on the phone he said his father in law had been in hospital, and that he would “pay what he felt he owed us” as soon as he was back in the office. Pay what he thought he owed us??? What the hell is that??

I decided to try and reach out to the guy that originally built the site, and sent him an email via his website. He got back to me and to my horror he had been screwed over to the tune of £4500. I spoke to another company that I found was linked to the website, and shock-horror – Stuart Paskin left them behind owing them over £1500!

As the days went on, I uncovered more, and more people that Stuart Paskin and Stewart Stalker at Lux Level Ltd had screwed over. So far, in the Paskin Fan Club there are 7 companies, 3 of them are full digital agencies and the rest are independents but we have all spent hours and hours and hours dealing with Stuart Paskin and his constant nagging demands, we had ALL neglected our core, existing customers to try and satisfy Stuart Paskins requests. And we had ALL been left behind, doubting our own capabilities with unpaid invoices on our accounts packages – I will blog about these stories separately.

A few months have passed now since we dealt with these con men but the pain of having to deal with them is still with us –  A quick check on Companies House reveals he is still very much in business and is in fact linked to a children’s charity! INSANE!

Ourselves and some of the other victims have been paid (we never got what we were actually owed, we ended up being paid the bare minimum but technically we got our invoices paid) but there are still people out of pocket including the person who originally built the website for them.

I am going to do a series of posts relating to the brand & company names these scammers use, and also (with permission of the victims) I want to write about the individual horror stories left behind by Stuart Paskin’s devious business practices and his repeated attempts to rape and pillage small creative agencies all over the world.

If you’re contacted by this loser – then run for the hills!

Stay tuned for more blog posts about Stuart Paskin and his team of internet bandits.

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!