Category: Scams

It was less than a month ago when I blogged about a web design scam I got through – and yet here I am with another one to share with you all!

It’s exactly the same format, just a different company and name etc – I dread to think how many versions of this are going round and it’s quite a clever scam as it makes you and I do the legwork and technically steal the money.

Paul Pierlot <zeonheallth@gmail.com> 9 Nov

Hello Good day,

How are you doing? Please advice if you do web design and also advice if you accept credit cards.

Thank you and expecting to read back from you

Regards

Paul Pierlo

Pretty much the identical message the first one sent over – note the double L in the name so it looks more convincing. If it was zeonhealth232@yahoo.in it would be more obviously a fake.

I knew it was a scam but wanted to get as much out of them as I could this time, so played along.

Me <me@me.me> 10 Nov

Hello,

Yea we make websites and we have a card terminal yes. What is it you are requiring?

Kind Regards

Olly

To which he replied with the same canned reply I got last time but with a few alterations;

Paul Pierlot <zeonheallth@gmail.com> 10 Nov

Thanks for your swift response

Here is the job details. I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in TN and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?

So i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible .http://www.agroamerica.com.… the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.

Note:

1. I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs.

2. I want only English language

3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as yourtopfarmproduce.com

4. you will be updating the site for me.

5. i will be proving the IMAGES, logos and content for the site.

6. i want the site up and running before ending of NEXT month.

My budget is $1,500 to $3000

Kindly get back to me with: (1) an estimate (2) your cell phone number (3) And will like to know if you are the owner?

Regards

As I stated last time, this is something that a young web design company with a lack of commercial experience may see and think is a real enquiry. Also someone that runs a web design company and has bad morals and doesn’t give two shits about stealing someones money (I know of a few!) may realise its a scam but crack on anyway!

I kept my reply short so we could get to the good stuff;

OK yeah I can do this for $3000.

Regards

Olly

Then came the “But…” 🙂

Thanks for your response,I am okay with the total cost.. everything sound good and I’m ready to make payment now with my Credit card.

I understand the content for this site would be needed so work can start asap.. but i will need a Little favor from you and the favor is that I will send you my credit card to charge for the sum of $8,000.00 plus 3% Cc company charges, You will deduct $3,000 for the design of the website plus extra $100.00 as a tip for handling perfect work for me and you will send the remaining $5,000.00 to the project consultant that has been handling all my consultancy and she has the text content and the logo for my website so once she receive the $5,000.00 she would send the text content,videos and logo needed for my website to you..

I would have love to make the payment directly to her,but she dont have the credit card facility to accommodate.so work can start asap,Sending of funds would be after my payment clears into your account.

Kindly get back to me so we can proceed with payment as soon as you ready to make a start.

Best Regards.

Again, kept my reply short as I wanted to keep him online, and was keen to try and get the name of the “consultant” who was supposed to get this money -maybe exposing their details online may throw the scammers off from doing these type of scams?

Yes sure, that sounds fair enough.

Please send over your card details and the details of your project consultant and her bank details so I can send her money once its in the bank.

Keen to get going ASAP so please hurry.

Then he went quiet for a day or two, maybe the IT cave he was using was bombed or something. He sent me this, which I thought was a real nice touch. I thought he gave a shit about me for a minute 😛

Hello, how are you doing today and how was your weekend, I just want to inform you that i will email you my credit card details today for you to charge and begin the process for my website.

Thanks

Aww, makes me think of a guy sat in front of a laptop, in a cheap suit, with a big smile on his face as he thinks he is getting paiiiiiiiiiiiid!

Ok Paul.

Yes im OK and my weekend was great.

May I ask where you are located in the world?

I always like to try and throw these goons off balance a bit, if you ask them something they weren’t expecting they have to write it themselves and can’t use one of their many canned replies, as you can see here;

Hello,
Sorry i have been on a business Trip and didn’t have time to check my email that was why i put all on pending but i am back now will like to complete the payment and keep everything going as planned before let me know if we still on so i can send my cards details today or tomorrow morning with instructions of how to complete the Payment.
Regards

Put all on pending, eh. Ok Paul. Avoided my question too. Shame on you Paul.

Yeah sure – let me know how you want to proceed.

Then he sent me a shed load of credit cards, all in his name! (card details removed for security reasons, obviously!)

Hello pls split payment n my below cards to complete the full amount of $8,100

Name on card: Paul Pierlot
Card # 4xxxxxxxxxxxxx0
Expire Date: 04/17
CCV: 9xx

Name on card: Paul Pierlot
Card # 4xxxxxxxxxxxxx0
Expire Date: 04/17
CCV: 4xx

Name on card: Paul Pierlot
Card # 4xxxxxxxxxxxxx0
Expire Date: 04/17
CCV: 0xx

Name on card: Paul Pierlot
Card # 4xxxxxxxxxxxxx0
Expire Date: 04/17
CCV:5xx

All cards are Visa card.

Email me back with the slip of payment for my record file okay.
regards

This is the part where I am supposed to rob money off all these cards, send his “Consultant” some and then make a website. What is more likley to happen is the money is all taken back off me and I am at a loss for the amount I foolishly sent to his “Consultant” as I wouldnt get that back! They make money. I pay the price. This didn’t happen though obviously 🙂

What I really wanted from all this was the “Consultants” details. That was one part of the scam I was sure had to have close-ish links to the people behind this. Unless they’ve hijacked someone else’s details for the receiving end too?

Hi Paul,

I’ve sent these over for processing just now – where am I sending the amount for your consultant to?

I waited patiently…

Hello,

Thanks for getting back to me Olly, Please find details below the Consultant Details to have the money transfer to:

Bank name……..Royal Bank of Canada
bank address….380 Scott Street St. Catharines Ont. Canada L2M 3W4
account number….525 2739
routing number….021000021
transit # …..04242
Swift code..ROYCCAT2
Bank #003

Please acknowledge the receipt of this email and get back to me ASAP.

Thanks

Bingo. No name though?

And what is the consultants name? My banking system requires it.

Hehe. Im a good tricker 🙂

Name: Richard Hehir

How soon will you be making the transfer to him?

And there we have it. I would love to hear from a Richard Hehir who has a Canadian bank account as he appears to either be a scammer, or a victim of one!

We then batted a few emails back and forth about it and he tried to get me to transfer the money via western union;

But I am bored of him now. If he keeps on at me I may say my bank requires a photo of him and his mother  or something 🙂

Be warned peeps, as it seems that a few versions of this are floating around!

If you get one like this but with different info, you can send it in to me via the contact page, and you can also forward it to NFIBPhishing@city-of-london.pnn.police.uk as they are set up to tackle these scammy bastards and stop them in their tracks.

Stay ScamWise people!

EDIT 27/11/2015 – Paul is still trying to get me to charge those cards! I have managed to get a Passport scan from him – blatant fake haha

EDIT 30/11/15 – Apparently, his “Consultant” emailed me.

Richard Hehir <tecpharrn@gmail.com>
27 Nov (3 days ago)

Good Day Mr Olly,

My name is Richard Hehir, I’m contacting you on behalf of Mr Paul Peirlot. I will like to know how soon you will be transferring the payment to me so that i can get back to you with the needed content for you to commence work with the Website.

I await you positive response.

Regards

Richard.

I thought I would try and string it out for as long as possible

Hi Richard,

I am unable to do western union – is there another method of payment we can use?

Regards

At this point I thought it would go dead, but it didn’t!

Hello Mr Olly

In receipt of your email, Please which others means do you thinks will be faster for you to transfer the payment to me?

Thanks

I started wondering how far I could take this 🙂

I think bank transfer would be the best method?

Can you confirm your bank details?

And are you able to supply photographic ID for yourself? We have a very strange accounting package that requires Photo ID’s when sending international payments.

Thanks.

Surely he had to smell a rat now?

Nope!

Hello Mr Olly,

Thanks for getting back to me, I will advise you with my Another Account as i just called my bank to confirm if i can receive international transfer with my other Account. so i’m waiting to receive International Account details for you to transfer the payment to me.

Thank you very much.

Then I got a bit busy at work so left it a day or so… this guy is desperate!

Good Morning Mr Olly,
How are you doing? Please i will like to know if you can transfer the money to me Via Paypal as i’m still trying to get my Account sorted out for the international process.

Kindly revert back to me as soon as possible so that i can give you my Paypal account.

Thanks

Oooo…

Hello,

Yes paypal would be great.

Kind Regards

He just wants to keep sending me info!

Thanks for getting back to me. Here is my Paypal Account E-mail (supsond@aol.com)

Please proceed to make the transfer ASAP.

Thanks

Ahh, I wonder which poor soul’s PayPal account they’ve owned – or could it be his? Contacted PayPal and Aol anyway 🙂

Then, he just chased me for the next 3 days but I was busy so mostly ignored him.

Hello Mr Olly,

Please advise on when you will be transferring the payment to my Paypal Account so that i can prepare the Content and have them send to you so that you can complete Mr Paul Website.

Please revert back to me.

Thanks

I had forgotten about him if im honest, then at 8:43am this morning we had a phone call at work from 0027625923806 and is was “Mr Paul” wanting to speak to “Mr Olly”

I didn’t tell him that was me straight away, instead I asked him some questions to put him on the spot a bit. I asked him what kind of website we were making for him;

“It is for my personal product”

And asked him a few other questions to make him sweat a bit, and then I made him aware that;

1. I am the worst person he could have possibly tried to scam
2. His name wasnt Paul
3. I have published his details to the world and it ranks in Google already
4. He was a massive twot

I wish I could have seen his face when he realised I had been stringing him along this whole time – bless him I bet he thought he was gonna get some monnnnnneehhh! ahaha!

🙂

This one was a bit random, I sussed something was up straight away but wanted to get some info out the guy, so played along for a bit. 🙂

It all started with an email;

On 29 October 2015 at 12:05, Aline Faltas <sambornetals1@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Good day,

How are you doing? Please advice if you do web design and also advice if you accept credit cards.

Thank you and expecting to read back from you

Regards

Aline Faltas

Pretty bad english, and the note about credit cards looked a bit dodgy but I played along 🙂

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 12:52 PM, Olly <olly@X.X> wrote:
Hello,

Yes and yes.

Let me know if you require any more information.

Regards

Olly

Didn’t take him long to respond! Hmm, copy and pasted perhaps? 🙂

On 29 October 2015 at 12:56, SamboMetals <sambornetals1@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for your swift response

Here is the job details

I have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in TN and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible .http://www.agroamerica.com.… the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.

Note:

1. I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as yourtopfarmproduce.com
4. you will be updating the site for me.
5. i will be proving the IMAGES, logos and content for the site.
6. i want the site up and running before ending of NEXT month.

My budget is $2000 to $4000

Kindly get back to me with:

(1) an estimate
(2) your cell phone number
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner?

Regards

Aline Faltas

At this point, I was questioning whether or not this was real – his first contact with us was dodgy, but this seemed fairly normal, there were a few bits of the email that I wasnt happy with so rather than answer everything I made him aware of some key points;

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Olly <olly@X.X> wrote:
Hello,

It is unlikely we could get this live for the end of next month for a budget of $4000.

Please let me know if there is any room to move the deadlines or budget.

Regards

Olly

Then, they sent me this and it was at this point that it went from a 20% possibility of it being a scam, to a 50% chance of it being a scam. Or maybe the chaps English isn’t too good?

On 29 October 2015 at 13:03, SamboMetals <sambornetals1@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for your response,I am okay with the total cost.. everything sound good and I’m ready to make payment now with my Credit card

I replied;

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 1:41 PM, Olly <olly@X.X> wrote:
Hello,

You misunderstand.

I cannot do this job in 1 month for $4000.

Make it $7,500 and we may be able to help.

Regards

Olly

To which I got a response that was a bit confusing, it almost lowered the probability of it being a scam by 10%

On 29 October 2015 at 17:49, SamboMetals <sambornetals1@gmail.com> wrote:
Ok how long will it take you to complete the job if i pay $7,500???

Hmm, thought I would be straight up with the guy just in case it was a paying customer;

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 9:51 PM, Olly <olly@X.X> wrote:
Hello,

Being realistic, it would take us up till the end of the year.

And anyone that promises otherwise is probably lying 🙂

Regards

Olly

Then, BOOM;

On 29 Oct 2015 23:46, “SamboMetals” <sambornetals1@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for your response,I am okay with the total cost.. everything sound good and I’m ready to make payment now with my Credit card.

I understand the content for this site would be needed so work can start asap.. but i will need a Little favor from you and the favor is that I will send you my credit card to charge for the sum of $16,500.00 plus 3% Cc company charges, You will deduct $7,500.00 for the design of the website plus extra $100.00 as a tip for handling perfect work for me and you will send the remaining $8,000.00 to the project consultant that has been handling all my consultancy and she has the text content and the logo for my website so once she receive the $8,000.00 she would send the text content,videos and logo needed for my website to you..

I would have love to make the payment directly to her,but she dont have the credit card facility to accommodate.so work can start asap,Sending of funds would be after my payment clears into your account.
Kindly get back to me so we can proceed with payment as soon as you ready to make a start.

Best Regards.

As if by copy-and-pasted magic, here came the payload!

Ive seen similar scams before, but not heard of them targeting UK based web design companies!

Hopefully no one will fall for this as its clearly a scam, they have probably stolen a credit card or bought a number off the internet and i would bet my years salary that the “Consultant” is actually him with a wig on.

Please let me know in the comments below if you have received an email enquiry like this, and ill publish the comments to hopefully help other people avoid being ripped off by Aline Faltas, with the email address;

BTW I did reply after his last email;

To: SamboMetals <sambornetals1@gmail.com>

Hi,

No thanks, scammer.

Kind Regards

Olly

Until next time! 🙂

EDIT: 10/08/2016 – Our Sambo metals scammer has struck again!

I was emailed by an individual who was on the receiving end of this scam but via a slightly different angle – Read here!

I dont know whats happened recently, but the Gmail spam/scam filters seem to be letting lots through that would normally never grace my Inbox – some of them are the usual Macro scams that historically i’ve ALWAYS had to find by trawling through my spam folder, and others are admittedly a little harder to detect and block but we are talking about google here – the company that has more money and resources than anyone else in the world ever.

The following email appeared one day;

From: John <accessbhanu@vsnl.net>
Date: 23 September 2015 at 02:09
Subject: PURCHASE ORDER

Good day,

Please confirm price and availability for the PO attached.
Let us know if you need any additional information to quote.

Your prompt response will be appreciated.

John h
(Purchase Director)

Straight to the point, spelled correctly, word document with no Google warning flags – this is what the attachment contained;

Ok, not the prettiest email, they could have spent some more time on this to make it more convincing but to many users they would buy it. I haven’t clicked the link, but it goes to here;

Which is obviously not an official Adobe link!

This kind of approach is worrying as the scammers could even target you based on the device you are on when you open the link, launching a desktop threat on a PC and some mobile threat when on a phone or tablet all when the page loads after that link has been clicked.

Google need to step their game up a bit and take into account these kinds of emails and if a link points to something that is obviously dodgy then spam the email and notify the host that there is a problem!

I’ve blogged about Resume Scams before, it all starts when you receive an innocent looking email;

NB: I forwarded this to my personal email from my work email as that is where I originally received it – and when it was in my work email (Google Apps for Work) the “Virus Found” message was not on it and there was no indication there was anything wrong.

I could tell it was dodgy straight away, but noticed in the Google Preview icon there was some content, so this was a document of some sort. On  clicking to see a larger preview;

A novice user would do as it suggests and launch some kind of Macro which would then either directly infect your PC with something or start a download and bring something in that could wreak havoc on your computer and cause you no end of grief.

The troubling thing about this is Gmail took a while to notice there was something wrong – so that means many people who received something like this in their email may have downloaded and actioned it.

I hope they had anti virus!