Category: Scams

Last year, I blogged about a scammer that tried to do us over at Work. It was a common scam style whereby the scammer tries to get you to take an overpayment for some services – and then send part of the payment to a 3rd party.

The scam comes in the form of the scammer using stolen cards, and the 3rd party is actually them. Meaning they are basically using you to wash dirty money!

Anyway, a concerned business owner, Petra, sent me an email chain between themselves and a scammer calling themselves Nomvula Tshefu – and using the same email as the Sambo Metals scammer – sambornetals1@gmail.com and within the chain the scammer tries to book a room and would probably be trying to use the same scam they tried on us – but thanks to Petra’s thorough approach to her work she managed to squash the scam early on!

Here’s how the emails went down;

Von: Nomvula Tshefu [mailto:sambornetals1@gmail.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 9. Juni 2016 17:22
An: XXXXXX@XXX.XXX
Betreff: Reservation for 8 Guest.

Good Day,

I will like to book 4 double rooms for 8 guest from 18th of June to 30th of June. Please advise if you have available rooms. How much is per night?

I await your response

Thanks

Nomvula Tshefu

Nothing wrong with that enquiry  – ok apart from the fact this guy clearly hasn’t read their website!

On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 5:29 PM, Petra <XXXXXX@XXX.XXX> wrote:
Hello,

we only have one holiday-apartement! It is place for only three Persons!

Greetings

Petra

Ooops…not off to the best start!

Von: Nomvula Tshefu [mailto:sambornetals1@gmail.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 9. Juni 2016 18:32
An: Petra
Betreff: Re: information from Petra in Oberfranken

We can book that for 3 let us know and do yous erve breakfast

Petra decided to clear up a few points…

Von: Petra [mailto:XXXXXX@XXX.XXX]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 9. Juni 2016 19:17
An: ‘Nomvula Tshefu’
Betreff: AW: information from Petra in Oberfranken

Hello,,

please look to my homepage. This is an apartment with kitchen.
I don´t make breakfast.

The apartment is still free in time from 18. till 30. of june. We receive the payment on the day of arrival.
For 3 people per day you pay 35,00 Euro plus final cleaning 35,00 Euro. Total price for 12 days: 455,00 €

Would you like to book? Then you will get a booking confirmation by mail.
But before I can make the booking finished, I still need some information.
As we work with reservation system, we need a complete address and telephone number from you.

Greetings, Petra

Tick tock tick tock… no reply…

On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 9:07 AM, Petra <XXXXXX@XXX.XXX> wrote:
Hello, Mrs. Nomvula Tshefu

the booking has not yet been confirmed! Please let me know if I can make the booking complete (For three person, from 18. till 30. of june)

Or you don´t want complete these booking ?

Please reply also in this case.

Greetings, Petra

Maybe they were scamming other people and didnt have time to reply ot the first email… This one got a response though…

Von: Nomvula Tshefu [mailto:sambornetals1@gmail.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 14. Juni 2016 09:44
An: Petra
Betreff: Re: Please reply quickly Petra in Oberfranken

I want to complete the booking and how much is the total again so i can send you my card details to make the full payment for the booking and secure it for me.

Again – this guy wants to get to the payment part ASAP – I wonder why….?!

On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 10:22 AM, Petra <XXXXXX@XXX.XXX> wrote:
Hello,
before I can make the booking finished, I still need some information.
As we work with reservation system, we need a complete address and telephone number from you.

Then you get a confirmation email
In this e-mail you will receive our bank details and pay € 455.00
The total price for 12 nights/3 people – from 18.06 to 30.06.2016 – is € 455,00

If the money has arrived on the account, you still get an email confirmation. And then everything is perfect.

Greetings, Petra

Petra being stern and sticking to her guns – well done you! The fact she runs her business properly also means she saved her own skin here. If she worked from a reservation book and everything was done manually I dare say she would have been screwed over by this clown.

The reply she got next was a golden piece of editorial wonderstuff;

Von: Nomvula Tshefu [mailto:sambornetals1@gmail.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 14. Juni 2016 12:35
An: Petra
Betreff: Re: Petra in Oberfranken

CANCEL.

Wow. This scammer didnt even try!

Petra took this opportunity to send a reply back which I feel was fitting – I would have probably been a tad more offensive 🙂

Von:  Petra [mailto:XXXXXX@XXX.XXX]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 14. Juni 2016 13:21
An: ‘Nomvula Tshefu’
Betreff: Petra in Oberfranken

Hello,

I hope you soon find another hobby, so you do not rob working people their time.
In the future your emails are landing in my spam folder. Have a nice day.

Petra

It was at this point Petra reached out to me and told me of her story.

Thanks, Petra! 🙂

If you get an email like this or an email from anyone you dont like the look of, then post a comment or contact me and I’ll do my best to help you get to the bottom of it.

 

It makes a refreshing change to be blogging about a new subject, in this post I will be explaining how we had the mickey taken out of us by a bunch of scammers branding themselves up as Mechanify.

I will start from the beginning…

They approached us in October of 2014 and required us to look at the KashFlow integration aspect of their new platform called Mechanify.

What is Mechanify?

It was supposed to revolutionise the motor repair industry by taking their old fashioned approach and bringing it to the 21st century. I dont think they actually asked any garages if this would be something they would want and just assumed, and pushed on regardless.

We were initially contacted by Lucky Garba, and dealt with their creative director Kevin Barton.

The main scammer here is a guy that goes by the name “Uvie Ugono” and as well as trying to destroy the motor trade industry he also has some renewable energy scam going off in Nigeria. He bats this about like he deserves a knighthood, but all he really does is sell solar panels to one of the most sun-rich (and cash-poor) countries in the world.

What went wrong?

Well, working for Mechanify initially started out OK, they paid their bills and all was well in the world. They got us to do more and more on the site as they were nearing the deadline they had set for themselves. It became apparent that the system was very incomplete – and with the deadline getting nearer by the day they started to panic and got us to do even more work. There were aspects of their overarching business plan that were just non existent within the system so we really had our work cut out for us. You could say we bailed them out the poop – BIG TIME.

Our team met all deadlines and managed to make Mechanify actually work, and all the time costs were increasing, we were telling them costs were increasing, and they simply told us to carry on; “it will be fine”….

Once we had completed the work, we then fought for over seven months to get our invoices paid. Then, after roughly eight months of chasing payments (and being promised them multiple times by everyone we spoke to) every single outstanding invoice was unnecessarily scrutinized so we had to spend even more time explaining exactly what each line on our invoices referred to – this would have taken five minutes if they had come back to us straight away, but eight months is a long time to sit on your hands doing nothing!

Once we explained the bits and bobs (again) and they once again agreed to pay their bills, things seem to settle down…

They agreed to pay within the next few days, but payment didnt arrive so I chased it again (bear in mind we’re over 8 months overdue already at this point)

Then another month passed…. No payment. I chased it once again but this time I bolded some words and said that I would potentially have to go down the legal route if we didnt have something from them soon. Uvie piped up again…

I felt he was being patronising here – but I let it slide as I wanted him to pay for the work we had done. However a few more days passed and I had to email them all again. I then got this gem from Uvie Ugono;

Buying sterling on the black market? Is that actually a thing? Also, if they had paid their bills when they were due he wouldn’t have been in Uganda or wherever the hell he claimed to be at the time – so I didnt give 3 shits about his convoluted process – PAY ME MY MONEY!

No-one gives a shit.

Then, a couple of days later TOTALLY out the blue, this essay arrived in my inbox. Maybe he was mates with one of the scammers ive pissed off in the past? His reasons are unclear, but he decided to erupt at us, blaming us for disabling his website (we hadnt – he is just a bit simple)

What a steamy pile of shit.

Again, he chose to be quite condescending in this email – acting like multi million dollar contracts are more important than the payments he owed to us? Money is money, debts are debts. Pay them and these situations magically dont happen!

I strongly believe that the reasons this pirate kept fobbing us off is that he was, and probably always has been penniless. If you are an entrepreneur, and do multi million dollar deals every day you dont argue over a £1,400 debt that is owed to a company that have created you your next online business.

Anyway, after we informed Uvie we hadn’t taken his shitty website down, he went all childish and refused to talk to us again, claiming we had insulted him and we were unprofessional etc etc. It amazes me that someone who is my senior, and is supposed to be some amazing entrepreneur tycoon, could act in such a childish, pathetic manner.

A few days after this email chain stopped, Lucky rang and apologised for Uvie being a childish moron, and explained how Uvie had reached his conclusion about the site being down, and how he’d decided we were to blame – Lucky then promised to get the debts cleared, even if it was £50 here or there. I was fine with this and thanked him for taking the correct stance on the situation and trying to get it all resolved.

Unfortunately, we had no further contact from Lucky, thankfully none from Uvie, and Kevin vanished into the fog.

Along the way Uvie also told us he had resigned from the company as he didnt want to deal with the mess caused by other people any more – yet as of today (15th July 2016) he is still listed as a director.

We’ve taken the matter to the small claims court and we’ll hopefully retrieve our money that way – but unfortunately the company is now in a position to strike off, according to Companies House.

I wonder how many other suppliers have been ripped off by these scammers? If you have been ripoped off by Mechanify.com or Uvie Ugono then post in the comments below.

The silver lining that came from this was in the form of our revised T’s and C’s that have stopped this kind of situation from happening again. We also credit and background check every new customer with the hope we can spot the dodgy ones before we start any work!

Be warned, peeps. There are scammers everywhere!

This article is about an EON phone scam – please show this article to any business owners you may know!

Last week while my business partner was off, we got a call transferred to me at work, claiming to be a chap from EON needing some info about my meter due to a technical glitch on their system.

The gentleman was of indian origin, and sounded like he was in a busy call centre – normally this wouldn’t raise any alarms as this is a common combination of elements, however I know for a fact that EON are based about 5 miles down the road from me and have never used indian call centres since we’ve been with them. Alarm bell number 1.

He started reading something very scripted, and was informing me about how there had been an issue with my account and that they needed my meter number to ensure my bills were being calculated correctly. 1

Stop. Alarm bell number 2.

Never give anyone your meter number over the phone. Ever.

As soon as they confirm your meter number and details they can start to transfer you to a provider of their choice – one that makes them lots of money!

I informed the chap I was uncomfortable giving my meter number out over the phone due to what I know and understood about the commercial energy market – he must have had that one before as immediatly he said he could tell me my MPAN number which should verify he was legit. He read me my MPAN number and it was correct – although I informed the guy I still felt uneasy and that if it was really EON that they should send me this request in a letter. He mumbled something then hung up.

The weekend passed and I thought nothing more of it – at this point I actually thought it was probably a legit call and I had given the chap a hard time on his first day at work or something!

Monday afternoon – “Ring ring…”

It was my mate from EON again with the same script he used on Friday, telling me there was an issue with my account and he needed my meter number. I just could not shake the uneasy feeling about giving him – or anyone – my meter number over the phone.

He then said he would transfer me to his supervisor and I actually heard him ruffle the phone and pass it to someone sat next to him. It was done so unprofessionally, for me it was the last straw. I told him I did not believe he was legitimate and that I wasn’t prepared to give him any info over the phone. He quickly hung up.

I then rang EON themselves and spoke to a lady who was based in nottingham and I explained to her what had happened – she confirmed it was in fact a scam!

Its worth noting at this point that EON is not a scam – the scam is a bunch of indians calling you claiming to be from eon, getting your meter number then transferring you to some scammy commercial energy company that they make lots of money from.

Now I know it’s 100% a scam, the next call we get I will be baiting the scammer a bit to see If I can find out more about the scam – such as who they would move me to if they had all the correct info etc.

Pointers regarding this issue and why my alarm bells chimed;

1. The chap didn’t go through any security questions to verify he was legit or I was legit. He used the MPAN number as a way of legitimising the call but this info can be obtained reasonably easily.
2. The subject he was ringing me about was regarding an issue with my supply/account – so why did it sound so scripted? Surely it would be a one off call from someone in customer services, not a scripted call from a sales monkey?
3. The professionalism of the call was terrible – he physically passed the phone to a supervisor, he did not transfer it. He was also sketchy about the actual issue, suggesting he knew nothing about it which was puzzling.
4. He asked for my meter number. EON would never do this.
5. He was from india, and I know EON use local telesales as a friend worked there!

I was commended by the lady at EON when I rang them to check, as she said its a big problem for them at the moment. Some customers have given meter numbers, bank details and allsorts over the phone.

Here are two phone numbers that registered on my phone when they called – they dont seem to work now though;

• 002063760823
• 002077286997

Country code seems to be Egypt but that could easily be masked.

Stay ScamWise people!

Please share this article to make everyone aware this is happening.

EON Phone Scam

Haha.

Got this beauty a while ago, just found it starred in my inbox.

From: Y gl <sizloto5@outlook.com> (reply-to address the same)

The email contains this golden transcript (was actually a JPG but thankfully the internet has free OCR software available)

From: Ms. Patricia Atkins
Canada National Lottery
1550 Princess Street
Kingston. ON,
Canada,
K761 9E3

Attention: Customer AFRSA660
Ticket Number: A9564 75604545 100
Ref: EAAU8510THI/15
Batch No. Lotto 6/49

Congratulations to you as we bring to your notice, the results of the First Category draws of E-MAIL LOTTERY organized by the Canada and South Africa Government. in conjunction with Lotto Powerball Annual Promotional Draw. We are happy to Inform you that your email address attached to Ticket ft; A9564 75604545 100 drew the Winning it 35 44 24 42 38 with hot ball number (9) Have emerged a winner of a total sum of US5920.000.00(Nine Hundred and Twenty thousand United States Dollars) in cash credited to file MSW.L./9805118307115 this Is from a total cash prize of USS10,1200.000.00 Million Dollars, Million dollars. shared amongst the first One Hundred and-ten 1110) lucky winners in this category Worldwide.

Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our Afro booklet representative office in Africa as indicated in electronic play coupon. Our African agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you contact our African Agent’s office. All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web site through computer draws system and extracted from over 10,000,000 companies and personal emails. For security reasons, you are advised to keep all your winning information confidential until your claims is processed and your fund remitted to you in whatever manner you deem flt to claim your prize.
To file for your claim, fill the form below and send It to our corresponding payment agent In South Africa immediately you read this message for quick and urgent release of your fund, and Contact information is as follows;

MANAGER: GRAPHIC TRUST CLAIM AGENCY
Representative Head Office in South Africa
38 Rivonia Road, Johannesburg South Africa
Contact Person: Mr. Kevin Victor
Telephone: +27719923208
Fax: +27865379905
Contact Email: info.cclaimagency@gmail.com
Your Full Name
Address
Nationality
Sex
Age
Phone/Fax.
Occupation
Ticket Number
Winning Number

Yours Sincerely.

Ms. Patricia Atkins (Sec. Zonal Cocoordlnator)

NOTE to confirm that you have the winning number for Tuesday 06, October. 2015 draw. do confirm under.

http://www.lotteryresutts.co.za/powerball

LotteryResults.co.za, 2015 © Lotto Logic LTD All Rights Reserved.

Such an obvious blag, the content of the doc is laughable but the initial email takes the gold medal. These guys fail at failing. They need to quit their day jobs as scamming isn’t for them.