bank account e-mails

From: [email protected]
Subject: New email address for Import/Export Business
To: [email protected]

Hi Smiley

This is the new email address that I have set up for the new Business Account, with Barclay's Bank

[email protected]

stand for:

Nouri for Nash Enterprises Worldwide and your birthday numbers- 4 4 1966 = 21

So the London Business Account will be done this month
I have signed the mandate, which has to go to their special business department to get the number and authorisation

This Account can be used for the Export/Import business for the farm machinery and equipment and any other supplies.

This will save on extra cost of transport and VAT

The business bank account you will open with the Bank of Morocco will then be able to send money from Morocco to this bank account to London with no problem so you will be able to get your money out of Morocco

Regards

Maria

this is a copy of a e-mail that was forwarded to me, is this the start of a scam, my e-mail address is not here
thanks

It sounds very strange to me special55 and I spent my whole working life in a bank before I retired, most of it n international Banking.

Scammers often like to set up fictional business deals and make it so that they can intercept money transfers when a deal is taking place.

Be extremely cautious.

Opening an account with the Bank of Morocco won't make any difference to how easily you can get money out of the country. A Moroccan bank in the UK obeys UK law and a UK bank in Morocco obeys Moroccan law.

Either your partner is stupid, or trying to scam you. I suspect that he's trying to make you believe that because he's set up an e-mail account, that he must have set up a bank account. You could always ask him for the details and, if you already have UK bank account, send £2 by bank giro credit to see if it goes through and doesn't bounce.

Thanks for that i suspect he was going to try to scam me, he kept forwarding me these e-mails and saying he will not be setting up a business with them, what a surprise they are still friends. I am no longer friends with either of them.

Once again thanks.

His comment about transport costs and VAT just sound like a reason to get you to do what he wants, and when it comes to how you set up your finances, it isn't safe to do what someone you don't know tells you.

It sounds stupid to say that where you have your account affects your transport costs unless the goods are being delivered to the bank, and banks don't allow that to happen anyway. For him to claim that there's also a saving to be made over VAT appears to suggest that he has a VAT number, so you could always ask him what it is as you can check that online. Without a VAT number he can't pay account for VAT anyway and that's not something a bank will arrange for him. The point is that you can't save VAT, as you pay VAT when you buy goods and reclaim it when you sell them. If you save by not paying VAT, and then claim it when you sell the goods, you are committing a VAT fraud.

VAT is a wonderfully complex subject, though if he is a bona fide trader he'll be fully conversant with how it operates, and he seems reluctant to provide any explanation, other than to tell you what to do.

As a business partner he needs what is known technically as 'a good slapping' so that you get explanations instead of orders.

These e-mails are from a woman to him he has then forwarded the e-mails to me for some strange reason.

He kept asking me if i had got them, I suspect it is a scam they are in together. If you require the names they gave me I can forward them onto you.

I am no longer in contact with them, I don't trust either of them.

Possibly it's a scam where a person sets up two mail accounts and then sends himself mails which he uses to attempt to convince someone else that there's a real business deal they can get involved in.

It's quite a good tactic but requires a lot of skill by the scammer to make it convincing. The scammer has control of both sides of the deal and can manipulate any potential victim in to doing what he wants. It works best on people who are actively seeking business opportunities, and is usually performed by high level scammers with resources.

If a scammer makes the offer to someone out of the blue it just seems bizarre, which is what seems to have happened in your case. The problem the scammer has is to provide sufficient faked evidence, a credible story and back up to make it all appear real.

At the top level the scammers who perform this fraud will go as far as setting up foreign trips and meetings with a host of associates to act as fake bankers and wheeler dealers. Low level scammers often hear about these set ups and try to perform the same scam without the necessary back up and resources.

I don't think he is that good, this other person does exist i have seen photos of them together.

anyway I will not be getting involved nor have i offered in the past.

Sounds like you have made the right decision, staying away from this.

Probably not special55, but if you've seen the Guinea mining thread, you'd understand how well organised and impressive a top line scammer can be. In my early days in banking an old school pal, working for an accountancy firm, had plans to go to Nigeria on an asset recovery project and, even then, I knew that such an escapade was foolishly risky.

As a foreigner in any country abroad you're at a disadvantage, but as you get closer to Africa the risk is not of failure, but of losing much more than you're attempting to recover. Engaging in business deals with strangers from abroad is reckless as you have virtually no method to get recourse if it all goes wrong. It's a two way street, so why's he trusting you ? It's usually because he's not risking anything at all.

Even in a regular business deal with a stranger, if he can rip you off, he probably will. A clear indication is when the person is much more eager to tell you about the profits you'll make and is vague on the specifics of the transaction.