This week, used machinery dealer ASI Australia was the mark for an unsuccessful scammer posing as a UK-based used press dealer.
ASI partner Alex Rio told ProPrint he had made contact with the conman while searching for a secondhand Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102.
“I sent an email requesting further information and an inspection on the press. I also asked for trade references and his background in the industry,” said Rio.
He said ASI received a guarded response asking for a $50,000 deposit but no web address or mobile number.
“The email also had very explicit deposit instructions – without a 10% deposit, I could not view the press and my suspicions were promptly aroused,” added Rio.
He contacted some dealers in the UK, who told him these “Somali swindlers” were all-too familiar in the industry over there.
Rio added that bogus dealers weren’t the only ones who could leave suppliers such as ASI out of pocket – “legitimate” resellers also had questionable approaches to machinery deposits.
“I know a very big company that was burned by legitimate guys. Sometimes legitimate companies don’t give deposits back. They’ll use the excuse ‘we spent a lot of money preparing the machine for inspection’,” said Rio.
The ‘Nigerian 419’ or ‘advance-fee’ con is one of the most common examples of email fraud. Mass-marketing fraud is estimated to net £3.5bn in the UK alone. In a recent report in a Brisbane newspaper, the QLD police said 3,300 Queenslanders had sent over $4m to Nigeria and Ghana through fraudulent schemes so far this year.
Secondhand machinery dealers aren’t the only print-related companies being targeted.
Harvey Printing got in touch with ProPrint to raise the alert over an email from ‘Don Cappochino (Head Bishop)’ asking for a quote for 200,000 flyers.
Alison Rickard, from the Tullamarine, Victoria-based company, said: “It appeared dodgy to us – bad spelling, imperial measurements, no contact details.
“So we Googled the name of the sender and came up with a page from an advertising website that described this email and many others of a similar format, and how the scams actually work,” she added.
Have you been the target of a scam? Leave your comments below
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