Another Scam?

[winterbunny]

[quote]We now know that a number of weeks after banking a cheque you could find that it was duff and therefore you shouldn't give a refund for thousands as a number of these scams ask you to do. However, wh...[/quote]

If you are taking card payments with the holder not present, in effect 'vente a distance', the holder has up to 6 months to resile from the transaction - not well known this one; and may add a bit to to your paranoia.  Having used proper bank card machines, rather than pay pal for years, we've never had a problem ...yet.  But there is no need to take more than is owed.  Can they actually pay more than is owed via Pay Pal? If so it's a loophole that should be attended to.   I tend to ask that they phone with card details as it gives a slightly better idea of them than via email.

Banking a cheque more than your bill is asking for trouble and could get you in deep waters with contract law and all that.  Best at the end of the day to return it.  If you are particularly suspicious why not ask for a copy of their identity with the cheque and if it's a large amount get your bank to do a bankers check on them, before you send any money off.  To be honest I'd be very wary of anyone who wanted to overpay, smacks of money laundering.

Buns

 

[mascamps.com]

Mostly we use VAD for no-shows so I guess that if they were able to reclaim it now and again we could probably live with it. Six months does seem an awfully long time though!

I wasn't thinking so much of them wanting to overpay with the TPE but rather for when we get it wrong and enter the wrong amount.

For paypal, it depends on how you set it up. I don't think that they can pay anything other than the correct amount (assuming that we've entered it properly, of course) with us as we use the mail wizard. Well, I suppose that they could pay the same amount multiple times but then you'd be refunding each transaction and not giving a partial refund.

 

Arnold

 

[Quillan]

I used to use 'factoring' in the Uk does this exist in France?

[winterbunny]

[quote]I used to use 'factoring' in the Uk does this exist in France?[/quote]

Yes you can factor debts, we use Cabinet d'Ormane in Paris, they'll take any debt from 15euros up and say anywhere in Europe.  You do need a proper address for the debtor as for small amounts they won't chase it without.

http://dormane.fr

Don't take any charges until the debt is fully recovered, then charge is 25%.  As for true factoring of invoices, we haven't had to go down this route as it's a cash flow wheez rather than a true debt chaser.

Buns

 

 

[Quillan]

Well Mr King has accepted my offer and wants to pay me 4,000€ on account with a international cheque. I have told him that I can't accept this but am willing to take a French Bank cheque or he can pay me by cash sent registered post or by credit card. That was 4 days ago and I have not heard a thing since.

[mascamps.com]

Not a scam as such but keep an eye out for emails with .zip attachments. We received a heap of them last night. They'll all have a virus so just delete them and don't try opening the attachment.

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

I'm feeling victimised now ... yet another different type of scam. This time a cold call from Stratford Advisory Services trying their high pressure sales of foreign exchange investments (a scam outfit).

 

Arnold

 

[Coco]

Well Mr King has accepted my offer and wants to pay me 4,000€ on account with a international cheque. I have told him that I can't accept this but am willing to take a French Bank cheque or he can pay me by cash sent registered post or by credit card. That was 4 days ago and I have not heard a thing since.

Quel surprise!!!!

[mascamps.com]

I'd be inclined to let him post the cheque just to see where it was issued and what the bank was out of curiosity.

 

Arnold

 

[Coco]

ANyone else been asked to book out 3 double rooms for 2 weeks, purchase 8 gsm mobile phones, send them on by Fedex and add the cost to the room bill?   They really must think you're born yesterday!!!  What I want to know is what they're doing with the extra 2 phones

[mascamps.com]

Not yet (now I'm feeling all left out). However, I saw them mention this scam on the French language equivalent of this forum (http://www.chambres-hotes.org/forum) . I can't for the life of me find the thread today but am sure that it said that they were paying by CB which has me very confused as to how the fraud would work.

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

Another cheque one...

Dear Sir/Madam
 
     Its a plesure reading about your sublet advert on the web as regards your accomodation for rent, I Would like to have in detail,the terms and conditions for booking accomadation..
I have been mandated by our client from Spain,to source a room for his newly wedded son.
Because of the limited time frame giving to me,I will appreciate your quick response giving us the required terms and conditions,total cost for one Week for  two persons(newly wedded husband and wife), in the month of July or August and all other services available,and whatever information necessary.I shall like to know if you accept payment via bank cheque or international money order.
Your immidiate response will be highly Appreciated.
 
 
Regards.
Mr. Michael Phillips
Tel/Fax:+447031943557

 

 

[Lesbatees]

Anyone had one from a Bob Clemons?

I've answered anyway, just in case, as it seemed it could possibly be genuine.

 

Val

[mascamps.com]

Haven't heard of Bob.

I also hadn't heard of "la Compagnie Les Affranchis" either but 'tis a genuine "all building" booking that we just received this evening.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this thread is making me very suspicious of any booking of more than a couple of rooms. I'm in two minds as to whether that's a "good thing" or not. OK, I'd be less than keen to be out the 10.000€ that our "friend" from Nigeria wanted to purloin a few months back but I worry that I'm starting to come across as being untrusting with potential clients.

 

Arnold

 

[Quillan]

[quote]Haven't heard of Bob. I also hadn't heard of "la Compagnie Les Affranchis " either but 'tis a genuine "all building" booking that we just received this evening. I don't know about the rest of you, ...[/quote]

As Miki said you get a nose for these sort of things and you just ask the right questions and bob's your uncle you know it's a con.

[Macker]

Julia's on the case too. She emailed me three times tonight with the message:

CHER AMI,

JE DEMANDE VOTRE AIDER POUR INVESTIS DANS VOTRE PAYS. JE SUIS JULIA NGOLI ET JE

MON HERITAGE .VOUS POUVEZ M\' ECRIT SUR:julia_ngoliyahoo.fr POUR PLUS DE

DETAILS. MON NUMEROS DE TELEPHONE CEST LE +22508274999

A TRES BIENTOT

JULIA

Not sure exactly what she is after but.....

Potential booking, maybe not!

[mascamps.com]

As 225 is the Ivory Coast, I think we're talking fraud here.

Quillan: I know what you're saying re "getting a nose for them" but the problem I find is that we are getting a fair number of genuine bookings which initially look very similar to the fraudulent ones and it would be very easy to come across to the real clients as being very suspicious. As you say, a few questions usually sorts things out but you need to be careful not to come across as a nutcase so to speak. Our particular problem is that, due to our size, the profile of some of our bookings is a bit different from most of you: this means that, now and again, what is an obviously fraudulent booking like, for instance, coco's 10 room one when she's only got a couple of rooms isn't as immediately obviously fraudulent to us: we've already got three separate genuine 10 room bookings this year.

Taking as an example, our "christian organisation" one... It hadn't got a @christian.org type e-mail address as you'd expect but then neither do any of our genuine "whole building" bookings so I can't go by that. The grammar wasn't 100% but then that's not unusual either. In fact, the only thing that marked it as a definite fraud was several e-mails down the line when they wanted to send a cheque for 10.000€ rather than just the deposit (although even then, we have had people who for visa reasons needed to pay the full balance upfront; the difference here being that it was an overpayment).

 

Arnold