Sophisticated scam

[woods2]

I am aware that several gite owners in Normandy have been contacted for lucrative bookings (eg 3 weeks off-season) and when the booking is offered they suggest sending a Euro cheque for eg 5,000 Euros for a 900 Euro booking, the rest to be refunded to Nigeria by electronic transfer.  I was approached in this way, and actually received a Bankers Draft, properly embossed and paid to me, from an (Irish) bank.  I phoned the bank in Ireland to check, and they denied all knowledge of the draft!  It seems that a group of London-based Nigerian fraudsters have got their hands on these supposedly 'unbounceable' drafts and is trying to launder the money via French gite owners to Nigeria.  It may be tempting to accept a juicy off-season booking, but believe you me, these drafts can bounce!  So far as I am aware, the fraudsters are only targeting French Connections subscribers.  Mike Woods.

[Mpprh]

Hi

 

worth reading a little bit here : http://www.419eater.com/  ?

 

Peter

 

[Owens88]

We have had two or three occurrences of this. Highly plausible and at attractive time of the season !

The frst time I didn't even register that the enquiry was from Nigeria !

However I have repeatedly said that becuase I am fearful of Money Laundering regulations I will NOT take an overpayment and return/forward part of the payment. (Theyare pretty onerous in the UK. I don't want to consider France).

BUT because I don't want to discriminate against a particular country I do say they should get a travel agent who would then book with me for accommodation only and manage the surplus elsewhere.

 

Sadly they never come back with these lucrative off-season long bookings !

 

 

[Ron Avery]

"However I have repeatedly said that because I am fearful of Money Laundering regulations..... BUT because I don't want to discriminate against a particular country I do say...."

Oh Dear John, by replying to these E mails you have now confirmed your Email address exists. You will no doubt get more of these scams as you are added to a list of valid addresses circulating round these fraudsters.

I realise that if you advertise on the internet, your mail address is in the public domain, unlike most of us who can try to dodge this type of spam but as a rule NEVER reply to ANY dodgy E mail.

 

[les Favets]

[quote]Hi worth reading a little bit here : http://www.419eater.com/ ? Peter[/quote]

Good one Pete Placed straight onto my " favourites "  Would it be worth placing on " Useful links " or " Postbag " to really set the ball rolling ?

Les Favets

Royston

www.ruralfranceholidays.com

 

[mascamps.com]

The problem is that some dodgy looking bookings are actually genuine.

The basic means of picking them out at the off are 1) dodgy grammar 2) cheapo e-mail address (yahoo etc) and 3) "oversize" booking.

Snag is that I've recently received two genuine bookings that match all three!

The only way to pick out the duff ones is that somewhere along the line they want to do something unusual with the payment, usually (but not always) involving an overpayment and refund from you.

For international cheques, it can take up to six months for the cheque to fully clear. It will look like it has cleared in a couple of weeks but that's because it has been "negotiated" and may subsequently bounce. The way round this is to have an account in the country in which the cheque was issued, in which case it fully clears in a few days but, of course, that's not always practical.

 

Arnold

 

[Quillan]

It's really a bit obvious, just use your common sense. Only a idiot would accept mobile phones and issue dodgy proforma invoices so you just delete these emails straight away. As to bad grammar etc well we have covered this before. It's not just the bad grammar but a cumulation of a few things. Ok you might loose out on a booking if you guess wrong but thats life. The best way to combat this sort of thing is to make sure you make it very clear what YOUR terms of payment are and ask for a deposit. We for instance accept ONLY French bank cheques, bank transfers, Euro travellers cheques and PayPal, there is a 3.9% handling charge for the latter.

After having a couple of no shows this year we now ask for a deposit comprising of half the accommodation cost and the full price of any evening meals ordered in advance. For UK customers we will accept a UK cheque (we still have an account to pay for our Sky TV) and will only cash it if they don't show up otherwise they pay fully in Euros when they arrive.

A few B&B's round the area have been hit by 'runners' recently so we now ask for the bill to be paid in full on arrival to which nobody objects as it is stated in our terms and conditions. Anyone failing to pay gets directed to the hotels in Quillan. It's a hard line to take I know but then it's better than turning people away because you are full only to find people don't turn up or book for 5 days, stay for 4 and do a runner. Does it work, yes it does we have been full for 5 weeks now and this will continue for the next 3 and we are still getting on average one request for accommodation per day not to mention passing trade. The problem is we are not alone and there is nowhere of equal quality to send them as they are also full.

[Brilec]

Another version is the booking from another country, I recently heard of one from Holland.

 

A cheque was sent for the full cost of the booking in advance, and then just before the alloted time, the client emailed to say that they could no longer come as his partner was unwell, and could they have a refund.

 

Yes, you've guessed it, the refund was given, and subsequently the original cheque bounced.

[Quillan]

Taking a cheque from another Euro country incures charges in cashment. These it would appear differ from one bank to another and also by who you see in the bank. My attitude is this, why should I suffer any costs. Euro Travellers cheques can be made out to you personally and then signed and posted with no cost to the B&B owner. PayPal is another method, you just add 3.9% to cover your costs. Of course we all know about French bank cheques so there is no problem there. Taking a English cheque as I said is easy if you have an account still in the UK. Even if you don't you can still accept it but state that you will not cash it unless they cancel and will hand it back when they arrive and they can pay you in full in Euro's. Some people also take credit card details even though they have no machine. The thing is the client does not know this.

So as I said before if you use your common sense it's as easy as 1,2,3. All you need is a few basic rules and stick to them. If you want to see and example of what we do then visit our website (available through my profile) and look at our terms and conditions, short, sweat and to the point and we are not flexable on any of the points mentioned there. If a guest does not like them then tuff go elsewhere, there are plenty more people wanting to book so who cares. Better safe tha sorry.

[mascamps.com]

That dutch one is a new one on me. I'd say there'd be a lot of people caught by that.

We can, in theory, cash euro cheques from any country free of charge by running them through our Citibank euro account. In practice, we've not had the offer of having any so have only used the facility to send cheques to ourselves.

Are euro travellers cheques free to deposit in the bank? I turned down some lately as I just assumed that French banks were bound to charge some suitably extortionate amount for depositing them.

Cash the UK cheques. We've a friend who didn't used to but the one time he needed to cash it (it was a security deposit for his gite), it bounced. He now always cashes them right away.

If you have the full credit card details (including the 3 digit code on the back) plus the client's address you could probably charge them via Paypal if needbe. Failing that, the card number plus expiry date are all that's required if you've a friend who has a credit card machine (they'd need "vente a distance" on their machine too) and needed to use them sometime. Note that you can't use this for Maestro/Switch as you need the card; Switch/Maestro cards start with a 6 (some will start with a 5 but these are effectively "proper" cards and you should be able to use the VAD facility; Visas start with 4 and American Express with 3).

One other interesting new alternative is to get the guest to buy a prepaid debit card (available as Visa, Mastercard and Amex) for the relevant amount, post you that and e-mail the PIN. If it's a debit card you could use it in the shops, cash card and you'd have to lift it in an ATM (charges are about 2€ per withdrawal but vary).

 

Arnold

 

[Quillan]

The object is to cut down on options people have to scam you. Having a Euro cheques account offshore or whatever won't stop a forged cheque or draft.

The cost of a travellers cheque is to the buyer not the retailer so they are very good as they cost you nothing and are as good as cash. In fact they are treated as cash by banks so there is no delay. Banks do check for forged ones when they take them by typing the number in to validate them so you know right away if they are duff but in three years I have never had a problem.

I agree with you on English cheques but if in doubt you can always phone the issuing bank and ask if the account exisits and if there are currently enough funds in the account to cover it. You can also ask for cheques to have the card number on the back. I would ask for a series of cheques to be written each to the limit of the cheque card i.e. for £350 and £100 cheque card I would expect to receive 4 cheques (3 X £100 and 1 X £50).

Not to sure about prepaid credit cards as I don't have a machine and not likely to unless it's free or cheaper than PayPal.

The whole thing is simple, use the KIS theory ,Keep It Simple, and you won't go far wrong. Make it too complicated and you will leave yourself open to problems.

[mascamps.com]

Oh, I know that the UK euro account won't cut out the scammers but it does, in principle, allow us to accept euro cheques from all over the world. The scam would require us to refund money so as long as we avoid that, it should be OK. Having said that, nobody's offered to send us a non-French euro cheque so far (possibly down to me always asking about credit card numbers).

Dead on re the travellers cheques. I'll try them out next time I get offered some.

You don't need a machine yourself to use the prepaid cards. It would be a similar price to Paypal I suspect though it depends on the amounts involved and is more likely to be useful in a gite context. It costs up to £20 for the card and around 2% withdrawal fees (the topping up fee varies as does the withdrawal fee); in any event it would be more economic for larger amounts (£100 plus). The big plus point over paypal is that once you've taken the money out of the card, it's definitely out, whereas paypal can claw back money some time later ie it's in principle safer for our uses.

 

Arnold

 

[wisteria<P><IMG src="http:forums.livingfrance.comimagesline.gif"><BR>wisteria<P><P><a target=_blank href="http:www.frenchaccommodation.co.uk">www.frenchaccommodation.co.uk<A><P><P> <P>]

I have been having these emails for the last 3 years, wanting to book usually the gite but occasionaly B&B .I have had them from Nigeria, South Africa and recently from Canada, there is usually a mention of god somewhere in it! normally at the end. Once you have sussed one out the rest are easy to spot.

wisteria

[Quillan]

No longer so with PayPal since it was bought by Ebay and then de-centralised. My PayPal is in France and they can't take money from my bank account after I have transfered it from PayPal (which costs nothing in France if over 100€). To get the money back they have to ask my permission to take it and only then after a investigation by PayPal.

[mascamps.com]

Ah, but the problem is that (aside from the "refund" or similar nonsense) and the (usually) African origin, a number of genuine bookings that I've received of late look an awful lot like a scam initially and you don't want to reject the real bookings if you can avoid it (particularly as they have been quite sizeable ones).

This isn't to say that scams can't be recognised as a scam after an e-mail or two asking for further information but it does waste valuable time. It's quite worrying that they are starting to come from "civilised" countries like Canada and I wonder how long it will be before they learn to do things like using good grammar, a sensible e-mail address and methods other than the "refund scam" to extract money (as I mentioned in an earlier thread, a more sophisticated scammer would just need to ask you for your IBAN and address)?

Incidently, on the "god" theme, there is actually quite an industry in booking religious getaway type breaks. A friend of ours has been putting our name forward for these for a while now, hence our scam from a "christian organisation" in London from a few months back wasn't so obviously a scam at the off as it might otherwise have been.

I do pity anyone trying to book a real holiday if they happen to live in Africa. I wonder if there's an opportunity there to seek them out as just about everyone must reject them as a scam these days?

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

True enough if you whip the money out of paypal itself. I guess the maximum downside is 100€ in that case.

Incidently, did you know that using Paypal France means that your requests for money etc. come out in French? We ended up having to create a Paypal UK account because of that as hardly any French will pay by internet in our experience.

On another point, I wouldn't depend on needing to give authorisation to your bank to make a withdrawal. Credit Agricole managed to transfer about 400€ out of my account without any authorisation. I will be having words with them tomorrow about that and the issue of them charging me for a debit card which I don't have and closing the account.

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

[quote]True enough if you whip the money out of paypal itself. I guess the maximum downside is 100€ in that case. Incidently, did you know that using Paypal France means that your requests for money etc. co...[/quote]

Explain further Arnold. Why did they take money out and what for ?

We used to rent an appartment out through a French agent in Provence, we unwittingly, had not paid the Taxe Fonciere for the last year we owned it. 7 years after it was sold, the Trèsor public caught up with us and simply took it straight out of our account which they had found. When asked why it took them so long, they simply replied "it just had".

The account they had taken it out of, had been one of our accounts for over 15 years at that time. Completely legal to do so.

I would add that as far we were concerned, this had all been squared up at the time of the sale but....anyway, our CA bank mananger helped us to find the "new" owners and we sent them a pro rata demand (written in the acte de vente) for their amount, which they paid up within a month.

Now for all those ways of being paid and being ripped off;

1. A scam can be seen by experienced folks from a million miles off and I reckon Chris is one who can see them coming (we do !)

2. I told someone on here recently, that at "a bit of a do", I sat with our old CA Bank boss for a while and spoke about this and he said that there was not chance that an Iban/Swift demand from us could backfire and have money taken out and not transferred in to. What happens in another country he could not speak for but he has repeated it now on many occasions, that without my say so, my money is going nowhere. We have now done well over a hundred such transfers in around 4 years, now if it so easy to be conned, why doesn't it happen a lot more often and why have I not heard of ONE person out here that has been "dudded"

3. All these weird and wonderful ways of making up ways of being paid, make me truly feel like some people live in flipping La La land !!

4. If one has a credit card machine, just have "paiement à distance" added to your allowance, job done !!

5. If you have not got a card machine, then keep it as simple as possible, make it complicated and you will end up totally confusing your clientele.

[Quillan]

Exactly right Miki, you can do all these fancy things but you have to keep track of them all. It only takes somebody to ask a stupid question at the wrong time and you forget what money belongs to what deposit for what guest. As you rightly say KIS and you won't go far wrong. As for saying you sometimes get a real guest well it's best sometimes to loose a live one than get conned by another.

Well I think we can put this one to bed now. All the info is here for those that need it. I'm off to bed, got a full house and breakfasts at 8:00.

Byeeeeee

[mascamps.com]

Explain further Arnold. Why did they take money out and what for ?

It hasn't happened to me but you'll find in the "small print" of your paypal agreement that they have the right to remove money from your account. Essentially in similar situations as you get with "real" credit card merchant accounts eg if someone raises a dispute or something. As I say, if you take the money out of your paypal account and into your own bank account then you'd be OK. Well, I assume so anyway as I imagine that they can't debit your bank account in the case of disputes.

2. I told someone on here recently, that at "a bit of a do", I sat with our old CA Bank boss for a while and spoke about this and he said that there was not chance that an Iban/Swift demand from us could backfire and have money taken out and not transferred in to. What happens in another country he could not speak for but he has repeated it now on many occasions, that without my say so, my money is going nowhere. We have now done well over a hundred such transfers in around 4 years, now if it so easy to be conned, why doesn't it happen a lot more often and why have I not heard of ONE person out here that has been "dudded"

I can only state again that I personally have actually used the equivalent of IBAN details to remove money from peoples accounts. Now, it was done for legit reasons in my case but the same method would work for scam purposes. As far as your using the details for a hundred receipts, I had used said IBAN details for several million such payments (it was a social security system) before using the exact same details to withdraw money from a few thousand accounts. The same method would work fine in France as they use transfer methods that are similar enough for it to work (that's how the IBAN system works internationally).

Next time you get the chance, ask your banking contacts if it is possible to "reverse" an IBAN transaction. If (sorry, "when") they say "yes"/"oui", then you will know that my method will work here too.

It's the same basic principle that lets a shop give you a refund on a card that you never used in their shop: all banking transactions are reversable. The reason that is becomes a scam issue it that, for various reasons, you don't need to make the original transaction to be able to "reverse" it. Clear as mud that statement... an example. Say you buy something in Tesco or Carrefour or indeed in Mas Camps with cash. Now for some reason you don't like said item and take it back for a refund. You hand Tesco or Carrefour your Visa card and they pay the money "back" into it. You've now "reversed" a transaction into the Visa system that was never done in the "forward" direction in the Visa system. Let's change that word "Visa" to IBAN. It is possible to "reverse" an IBAN transaction that never happened in the same way that the Visa transaction was reversed in my example. Slight difference in impact of course: reversing an IBAN transaction withdraws money from your account instead of depositing it. As I say, ask your bank if they can "reverse" (or whatever the French term for that is) an IBAN transaction.

4. If one has a credit card machine, just have "paiement à distance" added to your allowance, job done !!

I thought so too but have recently had two guests who couldn't pay the deposit because they had Maestro cards and they don't work on the "customer not present" basis. In practice, we just took their word that they'd be here but I'd rather have a deposit. Of course the ultimate solution is for Mastercard to get their act together and let Maestro cards be used on the "customer not present" basis as Visa Electron can be.

I actually don't think that the deposit issue is a big deal for us at the moment - I can certainly live with two non-deposit bookings (though thanks to Chris' warning about skippers, I plan to charge them upfront for the accommodation). However, for a number of reasons we have experienced quite a jump in Belgian and Dutch bookings which we expect to continue and as they tend not to have proper credit cards we need to think about how to address this issue before next years season is upon us.

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

Arnold you quoted this :

“Credit Agricole managed to transfer about 400€ out of my account without any authorisation. I will be having words with them tomorrow about that and the issue of them charging me for a debit card which I don't have and closing the account”

And now you say, when asked to explain, that it hasn’t happened to you ? What’s going on ?

If you are talking about Paypal, then you have not answered the initial question. But Paypal have no rights in to your bank account only the account you have with them, so why did CA take money from your account ?

I do not like Paypal and their higher charges (especially since being owned by e-bay) and encourage all our British guests to pay by Nochex (cheaper !), where money once paid in (immediate) it CANNOT be taken back, read about it on their regulations. Hopefully Nochex will be going Europe an Worldwide in the future.

”I can only state again that I personally have actually used the equivalent of IBAN details to remove money from peoples accounts. Now, it was done for legit reasons in my case but the same method would work for scam purposes.”

And I say again, if it was that easy, then the question simply has to be, why is it not a widespread activity ? With the way scams are going this seems to be the best way of scamming?

As I doubt you are completely au fait (or me even)with how Iban/Swift actually works here, then perhaps I can suggest that banking laws may well be somewhat different to what you worked with in the UK. We know of cases of large overpayments by the social security, where the person was given several months to pay it back, no thoughts of just taking it back. We had money sent by Iban from the UK to a notaires account here that went astray for a month, very nearly losing us this place we live in now. We were given a nice few hundred quid compensation for our troubles, not by the French side of things but by our UK bank who completely mucked it all up. Makes a change from being mucked about by French banks !

I will ask again about “reverse” Iban but how the chap will change his mind when he keeps specifically saying that without my expression permission and signature nothing will leave my account by any method, other than a shotgun !

Your example is of someone paying someone else with their own money and permission, completely different in my eyes.

4”…. If one has a credit card machine, just have "paiement à distance" added to your allowance, job done !!"

“I thought so too but have recently had two guests who couldn't pay the deposit because they had Maestro cards and they don't work on the "customer not present" basis.”

Come on, that is just two clients, so what I have said is correct. In the realm of things, two is not even in the overall equation surely !

[Quillan]

I don't want you to think Miki and I are ganging up on you Arnold BUT things are different in France and you were talking about the UK and Social Security payments etc which I think is probably a different case all together as it was an official government body taking the money back.

Having being personally responsible for a few credit card systems and internet bank systems I can tell you that the biggest fraud is with retailers who give money back to a client who just happens to be themselves or a member of their family. There are special software systems that look for this and the new anti fraud software systems for credit cards are now very sophisticated. Indeed a whole new generation of anti fraud software became operational when the chip and pin system. Unfortunately, for security reasons, I can't tell you how they work but they are very, very cleaver.

The type of cc fraud you were talking about is operated from the 'merchant' end and the money comes from the holding account. It's only when the time comes to 'settle up' that the problem used to be spotted. The fraud was done at the beginning of the trading period and by the end the merchant had 'done a runner' taking the money with them. So you see it can't work the other way round because there are too many safeguards in place. The only type of fraud you will suffer is from a stolen card. Surprising enough if somebody does make a booking over the phone using one you will never know as the card issuer is insured against this. Also they don't like it known that people are using their cards fraudulently as it's bad for business.

BUT all this aside I rather think I would be happy doing the same as Miki as he has been doing it longer, a lot longer, than you and I put together and does not have, or ever has had, a problem unless he is not telling the truth which I personally can't see him doing myself. One could, as I said before, get too cautious and end up quite paranoic if your not careful. IF I get caught out I will let you know.

[mascamps.com]

“Credit Agricole managed to transfer about 400€ out of my account without any authorisation. I will be having words with them tomorrow about that and the issue of them charging me for a debit card which I don't have and closing the account”

And now you say, when asked to explain, that it hasn’t happened to you ? What’s going on ?

This isn't related to fraud. Just Credit Agricole doing some things that they shouldn't have done ('tis the end of a long line of duff service from them).

I do like the charging of nochex and would move to them from paypal if they operated across more countries. However, for me, it's becoming an academic point as more people are tending to fax me their credit card details as a guarantee. This is also better for me as I can then charge them if they don't turn up and costs under 1% vs 3.9% for paypal. The main limitation is that I can't take Switch/Maestro as a guarantee that way (I think I can via paypal/nochex).

”I can only state again that I personally have actually used the equivalent of IBAN details to remove money from peoples accounts. Now, it was done for legit reasons in my case but the same method would work for scam purposes.”

And I say again, if it was that easy, then the question simply has to be, why is it not a widespread activity ? With the way scams are going this seems to be the best way of scamming?

The only reason I can think that it isn't used widely in scams is that it would be more difficult to set up initially (there are one or two other things that they would need to do that I haven't mentioned here but none of them are overlly difficult). However, I honestly believe that it's just a matter of time before some fraudster goes that extra mile and does it. When they do (and I believe it is "when" rather than "if"), they will be able to clean out accounts very quickly. My thinking is that it's best to be prepared for that day and only use accounts that offer full protection against it (ie either a clearing account or savings account). There was one example of someone going that extra mile (considerably further than an IBAN fraud would need to go) a few years back with the "Bank of Europe" (can't remember the exact name) which managed to collect a considerable number of millions of pounds, euros, etc. before they made off with it.

The law may well be different but I think that it's best not to get into a situation where you need to use the law to recover money, especially as it's so simple to protect yourself (ie by using a savings account rather than a cheque account for IBAN transfers).

Depends on the reason for the social security overpayment and who "looks after" it. We just whipped the money out but then we were ruthless

I will ask again about “reverse” Iban but how the chap will change his mind when he keeps specifically saying that without my expression permission and signature nothing will leave my account by any method, other than a shotgun !

Do that. I'd be genuinely interested in what they have to say. In practice, I suspect that they've never really thought about it (it would be a relatively rare type of transaction) so you might get quite an interesting expression as the idea works its way across his mind

Your example is of someone paying someone else with their own money and permission, completely different in my eyes.

True. I just used it to illustrate the principle of "reversability" of transactions. Permission isn't really required for credit card transactions either - just give me your credit card number and expiry date and I can easily demonstrate that

Come on, that is just two clients, so what I have said is correct. In the realm of things, two is not even in the overall equation surely !

Definitely. However, it represents quite a large proportion of a brand new group of guests for us that previously we'd not been able to reach. As a consequence of that, I think that we will be talking of at least dozens of similar cases over the course of the year and perhaps many more.

 

Quillan...

The way that the UK/FR social security systems calculate their payments is definitely different. However, their payment systems appear to be very similar from what I've seen of both.

But, never mind that... there isn't a "government" payment system per se (not in the UK anyway) and we were just using standard methods which (just about) anyone could use. There was no "special treatment" just because we were a government body.

I know about the credit card security software you mention (as a user and behind the scenes). As a user, it doesn't work at all well for me as I seem to make transactions in a way that gets picked up as fraud!  With one card, it got so bad that I couldn't use it anymore which does seem to be taking "security" to extremes.

I do bow to Miki's experience normally but in this instance the problem is that a single fraudster who goes the extra mile to do the first (that we know of) IBAN fraud will make off with money measured (potentially) into the hundreds of millions ie they have the incentive to go that extra mile. As I mentioned above, a similar scale of operation was carried out once when the fraudulent "Bank of Europe" (or whatever it was called) made off with some serious cash.

I accept that it will take a fraudster with some brains to carry this one off but on the other hand the only thing that you need to do to protect yourself against it is to use a savings account rather than a current account for your IBAN transactions, so why take the risk? My guess is that it will be five years or more before someone does it but then who would have believed that fraudsters would create their very own bank?

 

Arnold

 

[woods2]

Am I the only gite owner to by approached THREE TIMES by the 'Nigerian Scammers'.  The latest request came through my 'French Connections' page and claimed to be from Canada.  I didn't reply. This was followed up by phone calls from London, then Los Angeles (both traced) and an e-mail giving an address in Nigeria!  Although God wasn't mentioned this time, I do recall a booking request a few weeks ago from a 'pastor' who ended his message 'God bless you'.  The text was so wacky that I realised I was dealing with a nutter and didn't reply to this either.

French Connections have kindly added a warning about these scams to owners' links, and other similar websites have done likewise.

All the faked or stolen Euro drafts I have heard of so far originate from AIB (Allied Irish Bank), and I had heard it suggested, unofficially, that books of drafts are being stolen in transit by postal or courier personnel in the UK.

A warning about Travellers' Cheques-I used to handle these daily in my UK job.  There are good forgeries, and for this reason American Express and other issuers run a TC authorisation service.

Good luck and don't get caught!

[mascamps.com]

I'd be feeling completely victimised if I were you !

We have had Nigerian scams at a couple per week or so for ages (only one or two in any way personalised) but haven't had the phone calls.

Do you have details of the TC authorisation service?

 

Arnold

[Quillan]

I am afraid you are not alone. First they come in English and I can't remember how many we have had probably around 20 then they come in French and I have had around 6 or 7. The ones I really detest and answer for a wind up is the ones that are relatives of people who have been killed in unfortunate circumstances like the farmer in Zimbabwee (spellings wrong I know) to name but one. I don't like people taking advantage of others misfortune.

As for checking travellers cheques Bank Populair does this for me at the counter while I wait. Thats why I ask for payment on arrival, that and the chance of having a 'runner'.