Internet Debt Collector SCAM

Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 12:21 am

Do Your Own Due Diligence Online Always!

There are plenty of news on internet lover or love letter scams these days. And it never came to my mind that I would be the target of internet debt collector scam! Even though internet debt collector scam is no more new to many, but I still think it is worth to provide a consolidated resource of information, warnings, personal experience and info collected online which will hopefully minimize the damage that these con artists can cause to others.

Here goes the story:

1. First I receive an email from a lady called Anita Khan:

Dear Sir/Madam

My name is Anita Khan living in Ontario Canada i am sending you
this Request for a possible Representation in my Organization i
serve as a Representative of Asia Pacific Microsystems Inc. in
Canada/USA Region i act as their Collective Agent here i.e i
recieve payment from delinquent customers.

The Reason why i am writing you this email is to seek your counsel
and know if you will be able to take up this job as i am on holiday
and will not be returning till the next 3months.

Here are the Benefits if you wish to take this Job

1. $3,500 Every month as your Salary.
2. 10% of every debt you collect from any delinquent customer and
then the Company will instruct you on how to send the rest balance
to their End.

If Accepted kindly contact Mr John Change of (APM) he will advice
you of Next step to Follow.

His Details are as follows.
Full Name: John Chang (Mr)
Phone Number: Tel (General):    +886-3-6661188
Fax (General):   +886 2 6601 2030
Email:  mrjohn@asia.com

Position At Work:  Vice Chairman/Administration / Asia Pacific
Microsystems, Inc.

Do contact him by email and advice him of the following details
from you

FIRST NAME:
LAST NAME:
OCCUPATION:
CONTACT ADDRESS :
HOME PHONE NUMBER :
CELL PHONE NUMBER:

Thank you and do have a lovely day

Mrs Khan
anita_khan@techie.com
+1-647-219-6051

2. After reading the email, QUESTION MARK ? started to pop up in my head. Why would one, especially the big company would send out email to individual for debt collector position. And I decided to play long and got back to them for more detail.

3. Their reply as follow:

Dear Addy

We are a Company that manufactures and sells MEMS foundry materials
and was established in 2001. We request your representation to enable
us collect a debt owed to us by a delinquent customer. We do
appreciate your time in reviewing our request and. we are willing to
work with you to achieve our goal, as the importance of your services
cannot be over emphasized.APM thank you very much for your prompt
response, I would have the opportunity to talk to you sometime but
thought you should know what we are looking for by email which enables
me present/express my case better than telephone due to my accent and
English but that we are very optimistic that this relationship will be
beneficial to both parties. Below are the areas we would require your
expertise.
2, Receive the said funds of past due account and keep in a trust
account on our behalf until the funds are required by our company
and also maintain the running of your expenses.

3. A Salary of $3,500 will be Assign to you from the day your Approval
was granted as a Bonafide Rep of APM in your local Region.

4 10% of any Successful payment you recieve from our past due account.

5, 80% of payments from that region is used for the purchase of raw
material for production and outstanding payments due our suppliers,
you will be instructed on how and when to disburse, at the end of the
month you shall supply us with details of how much was collected and
disburse for us to reconcile our accounts.

Please Kindly forward the Following Details to us for Verification

Full Name: 
Mailing Address.
Cell phone Numbers:
Home Phone Numbers:
Occupation:
Brief Description about your self or your Position at work:

Once this details has been recieved by us it will be assign to the
verification department and if your name came out as a Bonafide Rep
of APM we will notify you within two days.

Awaiting your response
John Chang
Vice Chairman/Administration
Asia Pacific Microsystems, Inc.
#2. R&D Rd. VI
Science-based Industrial Park
Hsinchu, Taiwan 300, R.O.C.
Tel (General):    +886-3-6661188
Fax (General):   +886 2 6601 2030
http://www.apmsinc.com

4. I decided that is enough and stop communicating with them.

So guess what would happen next? If you search online for “debt collector scam online”, you will then know what will come up next. I provide you a case history quoted from http://www.alqlist.com/BBSpam.asp:

Subject:From Anthony Kelly, ALL IRELAND CREDIT SERVICES Ltd :

We were approached by e-mail by a Vincent L. Chow, purporting to be Vice President of a company called Sinoway Industrial (Shanghai) Co. Limited in China to collect a debt of some € 1,000,000 from an Irish company. We subsequently received a cheque for Stg.£ 225,000 out of the blue from the ‘debtor’ in question, which was accompanied by an official letter on what appeared to be a genuine company letterhead, asking us to confirm receipt of the cheque by email to them in order to comply with their ‘potential fraud’ procedures. We lodged the cheque and then we came under intense pressure from Sinoway to release the funds to them. As it is strict and standard operating procedure here NOT to release ANY funds to any client until we are 100% positive that the funds have cleared the banking system, we did not cave into their demands to pay over the monies. The cheque BOUNCED quite some time after lodgment, and it was returned to us by the bank marked ‘potential fraud’. We have since received a call from the Fraud Investigator for the bank in question, and they have informed us that several firms – including at least one other Irish collection agency – have been scammed out of significant sums of money by these individuals. The actual cheque which was posted to us looked to all intents and purposes to be genuine. And the ‘client’ in question also provided us with an official-looking copy invoice relating to the debt and their own full company and contact details.