Possible Nigerian Scam?

[Dan Gould]

I am a shareholder in a company that sells Aviation English training online. The vast majority of our customers come from various re-sellers we have, such as Boeing and several others. Our website gets traffic and the occasional purchase of a Placement Test and course. We offer Paypal for such customers. This week we found out that someone contacted our technical partner, the company that hosts the course on their learning management system, stating that they wanted to purchase a placement test + a Basic level course, but they have no credit card or paypal. Looking deeper into it, we found that the person had registered for the Demo and gave his address as Nigeria. Now the boss has emailed him information on making a wire transfer of $800 to cover the cost of the course, and now I am worried that they can use the information given to empty the account rather than pay us.

Am I over-reacting or have we stumbled on to a new Nigerian scam - express interest in a product, say you can't pay via normal methods like credit cards or paypal, and get the bank information for a wire transfer?

[Aggie87]

Scam.

[papsrus]

I don't think you're overreacting at all. Sending bank account information to some guy in Nigeria is a mistake. Freeze the account.

[Dan Gould]

Well, as it happened, the boss was reacting to the initial information that the guy could not pay in the usual manner (he didn't ask directly for wire transfer info, so that's a rather passive way for this scam to work) and she sent out the info before our technical person followed up on what info she could glean about the person. And she left to visit her husband in the hospital so she didn't see the emails about him being from Nigeria or my reply. (I'm also thinking that if I am doing this as a scam, I don't indicate I am from Nigeria since that raises flags.)

So, I just called the boss and she is calling BoA right now. On the good side, there isn't much to be taken out, if they do successfully access it. I mean, if we were swimming in revenue, I wouldn't be looking for work, I'd be getting a nice sized salary for very minimal work. I'd be surprised if there is more than a few hundred to a thousand bucks in the account right now. At the same time, we've got a large invoice pending with Boeing and they do wire transfers to pay it, so if this really is a problem, then she'll have to get the account number changed and deal with getting Boeing to update their info too. We've had problems before where checks were delayed by about three weeks because Boeing didn't have the account number updated.

Thanks for the advice, everybody.

[Claude]

How can you take money from someone by knowing his bank account number? That's not how the Nigerian scams work.

Here in Europe, many companies show account numbers on their website.

[Dan Gould]

How can you take money from someone by knowing his bank account number? That's not how the Nigerian scams work.

Here in Europe, many companies show account numbers on their website.

Well this is where my banking knowledge is deficient and hopefully Jean will find out from the bank if this is a problem. But she didn't give out the account only. "Wire ABA" "Swift Code" and "Direct Deposit" were also a part of her email, with the bank address and the beneficiary name and account number.

So I don't know if this information can be used in reverse to initiate a transfer from the account rather than to the account. But better safe than sorry.

[Dan Gould]

Just heard back from the boss - at the bank's recommendation, the account is frozen and a new account number has been assigned. The woman said that yes, in fact, with the information the boss gave out and some knowledge of the bank system, a withdrawal could have been made on the account. So big thanks to Paps and Aggie for giving the encouragement to go ahead and call the boss directly and tell her my concerns. Otherwise she would not have seen the email I sent until late this afternoon or tonight and if this was a scam, he'd have had a bigger window of opportunity to do his dirty work.

And if he contacts us and says he was prevented from making the transfer, we'll tell him the bank told us they can only accept wire transfers from businesses, or from individuals not located in the scam center of the universe.

[Claude]

I could only imagine using cheques on that account, combined with ID fraud, to withdraw money.

Cheques are now rarely used in Europe, so maybe that's why people here don't worry publishing their account numbers online, when there is no money withdrawal possible using cheques.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Claude

[Brad]

Usually any emails or what have you from a Nigerian source is a scam. Glad you caught this timely.

[Robert J]

On a related note - When I worked at one of the big 4 accounting firms as their internet producer I started seeing some Nigerians trying to sign up for courses or events in Toronto (which were typically free events for C-level types). I thought it odd, but possible, since there was no obvious money scam issue.

However, I got talking to one of our lawyers who said that the confirmation receipt for these events almost becomes a document with some "validity" if one of these guys hopped on a plane, or tried to leverage it for some other scam. "Look, **** has me registered for their Director Series events. I am therefore important and have a reason to travel, invest money, abuse English language grammar in emails, etc."

[Dan Gould]

"... abuse English language grammar in emails."