Scam Money Transfers: Dr. David Williams

Scam Money Transfers
Example - Dr. David Williams, yyy

Do you own a hotel, restaurant or other small business and you received an email from a "Dr. David Williams" who  "is a Lecturer of the Cambridgeshire College of Agriculture England and he wants to book dinner for our college staffs who will be visiting your city."? It starts out sounding like a legitimate business transaction, but as the victim corresponds with the scammer, it starts to become strange.  The foreign businessman wants you to either deposit a check or make a credit card charge, far in excess of the costs for your product or service, then he wants you to take the excess and give it to another agent, a hotel, someone who must "book cars" or whatever.  Of course, your response should always be "No, we will only charge for and accept payment for our own products and services, which must be paid according to our schedule."

In reality, it is all a scam.  Dr. David Williams (not his real name, obviously) hopes to con you into sending money for various "fees" to free the fortune.  If you would like a step by step explanation of how this type of "Advance Fee Fraud" works, click here!

Notice (highlighted below) some of the other obvious signs that this is a scam are poor spelling , use of free Yahoo/Hotmail/etc email accounts, proposals that make no sense, etc.:

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Scam email:

This example was sent to a restaurant in the UK, but it could be any type of small business, anywhere.

----- Original Message -----

From: Williams Davids email: williamsdavids3@hotmail.com

Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2007 4:50 AM

Subject: dinner booking [Scanned by Freecom.net]

Hello,
 
I am Dr.Williams David Lecturer of the Cambridgeshire College of Agriculture England .
I want book dinner for our college staffs who will
be visiting your city.
 
Please confirm these reservation
 
Details of the Reservation:
 
Date: 1st,2nd,3rd,4th,5th,6th,7th ,8th and 9th Feb 2008.
No of people:10 people
Arrival times: 6:30 PM each day

Kindly get back to me with your rate and total cost for the 9 days dinner Ok.
Mode of payment.
Credit card only.(I hope you have credit card facilities ?)
 
I await your swift response.
 
 
Regards,
Dr.Williams David
Tel +447045749341

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Here is the restaurant's response to the scammer:

Namewithheld wrote:

Namewithheld Restaurant is an English Restaurant in Cheshire Uk

we do breakfast, lunches, evening meals; which are all priced on Namewithheld Restaurant web site . we have no accommodation but are very close to hotel.

We do early dinners menu 2 courses for �10 6.pm to 7.30 pm most evening s we close Monday nites and all day Sunday

thank you

 Namewithheld

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And the scammers next reply to the restaurant.  At this point, the restaurant recognized the scam and forwarded the emails to CFR.

From: Williams David

Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 9:17 PM

Subject: PAYMENT ARRANGEMENTS.......................

Dear,
 
Thanks for your reply and assistance so far for the dinners,To make sure that everything is confirmed before arrival we wish to make deposit payment to hold your bookings for us,Also we wish to tell you that we made arrangement with an agent who will book cars that will be transporting us to your eating place and provide us with other logistic needs during our stay.
 
Kindly Adhere to the following instructions in regards to your deposit payment to hold our booking in your place, Due to security and other reasons, We don't want two parties to handle our credit card details.

1.We will send you my Visa Credit card details .
 2. As soon as you get the Credit Card details, You are requested to Charge the amount of  GBP 6,000   for your deposit cost and that of the agent who will book the cars.

3.Take the deposit of GBP 1,500  and send the Balance of GBP 4,500   to the agent  for him make the car booking and other logistic booking needed.

4.The balance payment will be made upon arrival.
We are entrusting our Credit Card details to you on trust,So do not allow any third party to see the details ,Just charge as instructed and get back to us.

Meanwhile we will need the following informations of yours.also tell us if accept this payment proposal for the Card details to be forwarded to you.
 
(1) YOUR FULL NAME:
(2) ADDRESS:
(3) PHONE NUMBERS:
 

NOTE:WE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY TAX THIS WILL ATTRACT.
Please remember that the integrity of our members is involved, so this business requires
 
prompt response.I expect an expert service.
 
 Regards
Dr Williams David
 

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