Edeson International

Hi folks,
Has anyone heard of these people?
The head office in Canada is a used car sales lot, the branch office in USA is a restaurant, the UK office is empty.
They have "borrowed" a substantial amount of money and now seem to have disappeared from the face of the Earth.
Any information on them would be greatly appreciated.
Michael

[AlanJones]

Their website (what I could view of it - some pages were blocked by my firewall) doesn't seem to get any indication of them having US or UK offices - where did you get that information from?

They claim to be a consultancy firm - so what exactly is the scam that they are involved in - you mention "borrowing" money - was this through looking for investors or some other means?

I have no doubt that the website is fake. For example, the pictures of their team are stolen from here.

The addresses are from a contract between a Russian investment company and Edeson - for a large amount of money. My company has been commissioned to recover the debt and after a few emails Edeson has stated they will repay it shortly and want my bank details to make the transaction. It's all a bit easy for the amount of money involved.

I just smell something is not quite right.

Hi Alan,

How did you find the photographs?

I'm impressed and intrigued.

Michael

[AlanJones]

How did you find the photographs?

Google image search - if you click on the little camera icon in the search box, it allows you to either upload an image or enter the URL of one and then looks for images that match it.

I assume your client is the Russian Investment company - are you sure that they are legit and are not part of some sort of scam to scam your company?

I've been onto my bank and they say that there is no way for a third party to remove money from my bank account without my permission. I can't work out what the scam is, if there is one. The Russian company are my client and they seem to have lent £300,000 without performing the most basic of checks on Edeson International, which has a Panama based registration. I have had contact from Edeson, who wants my bank details to arrange a transfer.

I can't work the scam out.

Thanks for the tip on the photo's - I didn't know that.

[AlanJones]

The scam that I was thinking it might be is that Edeson will make a payment to your bank account and then you will be rushed to transfer it on to your client. The transfer from Edeson will then be found to be fraudulent (possibly a fake cheque deposited into your account) and will be reversed from your account, leaving your company down the £300k.

It is a scam that has been used to target lawyers for a while - a company abroad will appear and ask for assistance retreiving delinquent funds and giving details of the company that owes the money. The lawyer will contact the debtor and they will be more than happy to make the payment.

But if you are sure that your client is legitimate (are they a long term client or have they just appeared asking you to retreive the money on their behalf?) then that would be ruled out.

EDIT: There's a description of delinquent money collection scams here

[AlanJones]

Edeson International, which has a Panama based registration.

I'm not sure how much info you were able to get on the Panamanian registration, but it looks like the company was registered in 2004.

I'm guessing that since the names of the directors on the legitimate company do not match the names on the website, that the people you are dealing with are not the real Edeson International.

The scam that I was thinking it might be is that Edeson will make a payment to your bank account and then you will be rushed to transfer it on to your client. The transfer from Edeson will then be found to be fraudulent (possibly a fake cheque deposited into your account) and will be reversed from your account, leaving your company down the £300k.

This would make perfect sense - the Russians are new to us. Is there are way to reverse the scam and singe them a little bit? Would the bank not be culpable in some way for not checking the transaction out? Also, if it was a BAC transfer, would the funds not have to be real?

[AlanJones]

I sent you a PM in reply to the information you provided about the Russian company and with the use of +4470 redirect numbers and a recent domain registration (despite claiming to be in business for more than 5 years) it definitely looks like a scam.

It is highly unlikely that any real money would get in to your account - the credit would show for a few days and then when the funds are found to be fraudulent, would be reversed.

If by any chance real money did turn up in your account and you tried to pull some sort of scam on them, then it would likely leave your company open to accusations of fraud or money laundering as the authorities would have 2 none existent foreign companies and your legitimate company - they will go after the one that is easy to track down (your company).

Speaking of money laundering, that is another possible scenario - 'Edeson' have some dirty money that they need to get into the banking system, so they send it to you and you forward it on to the Russians (who are part of the same gang), who then have a transfer from a legitimate company.