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Old 24 May 2007, 01:27   #1
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Country: Canada
Town: Cowichan Bay
Boat name: Neptune
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Length: 6m +
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Do you think this is a scam

Seems like a scam to me no questions about whale watching or any other questions. Do you think this is a real UK phone number?

Here is the email.

Good day,
We would like to book for Whale Watching for 15 of our executives that is coming for leisure Tour
Below is the booking details

Arrival Date: August 20
Number of Days: 5
Payment mode: 100% deposit by Credit Card.

I want you to send us the total cost for the 15 people and as soon as i hear from you i will forward to you my credit card details for you to charge your 100% deposit.

Thanks and i look forward to your response

Lawrence Williams
Tel:+44 702 401 8959
+44 704 572 6838
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Old 24 May 2007, 01:37   #2
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Well he is obviously pretty illiterate but that's nothing new these days!!!

it looks like a typical UK mobile phone number - ring it and find out.....

What do you have to lose? Just be very careful you don't give out any bank details. If he gives a card number and it clears through etc it should be ok. If he's paying now for august there is plenty of time for any problems to show up.
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Old 24 May 2007, 01:38   #3
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cheers
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Old 24 May 2007, 04:40   #4
alt
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As the other poster said - Ring the number, see what the person has to say, if everything sounds good then take your deposit. If you feel suspicious 'Sorry sir, all those dates are booked out'
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Old 24 May 2007, 06:36   #5
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Engine: 44lbs of thrust....
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Ignore Codders.... 0702 and 0704 numbers are premium rate platform numbers... Met police give you details of a "typical" fraud here.....http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/...ng_machine.htm .. so be careful
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Old 24 May 2007, 07:03   #6
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. . . and I bet the email isn't from a company domain, but gmail, yahoo, hotmail etc!

Who would book 15 people without asking for some sort of group discount?
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Old 24 May 2007, 07:46   #7
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Town: Leicester
Boat name: Vixen
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MMSI: 235071839
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Is that your twenty knicka a minute type line then?
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Old 24 May 2007, 10:59   #8
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Boat name: Blue Marlin
Make: Ribcraft
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DON'T DO IT!!

The premium rate numbers will cost a fortune - we had someone try something similar to book accomodation.

I e-mailed him back and asked for the details of the people staying, and (giving him the benefit of the doubt) treated them like normal punters.

Then, as they were foreign 'executives', and were restricted in what they could pay for - they asked us to pay some of their UK costs (hire cars etc) and charge it to the credit card. We were asked to pay these costs by bank wire (!!).

I e-mailed him back, and suggested that he probably shouldn't be using that hire car company as they sounded dodgy, and we couldn't take anything but the accomodation costs - and, guess what - never heard from him again!!

If you get taken in, I suspect what they do is give you someones stolen credit card details, which go through absolutely fine. You then wire some funds to an account (bank wires being conveniently untraceable/anonymous), and charge that to the credit card as well. It all goes through fine.

THEN - the person who's credit card it is cries foul - and the card gets charged back to you. Scammer has his bank wire, innocent credit card holder gets his money back - YOU are out of pocket.

We get 3 or 4 offers like this each week at the B&B - we go far enough down the line with them to establish whether they are dodgy (occasionally they aren't) - and pull the plug when they ask us to do something we aren't happy with.

Hope this helps!!

D...
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Old 24 May 2007, 11:27   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jono View Post
Ignore Codders.... 0702 and 0704 numbers are premium rate platform numbers... Met police give you details of a "typical" fraud here.....http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/...ng_machine.htm .. so be careful
That will teach me to use the net at 3am!!! Having said that - numbers aside - the advice still stands.
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