Sophisticated Advanced Fee Fraud – Professionals Vulnerabl

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 19

I was recently contacted on LinkedIn by a person supposedly from an organization looking for speakers and instructors for an upcoming conference they were holding. As I am already in this profession, I did not think much of this but what struck me was the organization web site and the lack of mention of that organization in any of my trade publication. Google searches returned nothing and the web site was badly put together, full of grammatical and spelling errors.

This organization was very keen in hiring my services for their upcoming seminar and was willing to pay my asking fee. However, when they requested me to provide them with my information such as company name and address, I became suspicious. I think this could be an instance of advanced fee fraud where they will likely send me a huge check (much larger than my asking fee) and will ask me back for the difference. I am still researching this organization through my professional network to see if someone else has worked for them before prior to handing over any personal information. I am not finding this organization mentioned anywhere. Also, the conference is being held overseas (big surprise).
It seems this is rather sophisticated and targeted for an advanced fee fraud. This person found my profile on LinkedIn, targeted me specifically by name and profession. This may not be a fraud after all but if it is, I find it amazing how good a setup this is.

So professionals be aware!

Not quite a Newb Joined: 04 May 2012 Posts: 79

Might be worth taking them up on the offer and then pulling the plug once you know it's a scam or realise it's for real and don't want to go.

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:48 pm

You might want to post the web site details in the Fake Banks forum and ask one of eater's experienced site killers do a little research into it. Check the stickies in that forum for instructions on how to do this. It isn't hard or time-consuming. I certainly wouldn't want to hand over any personal information to them until you know for sure they are legit.

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:34 pm

One of the things I've seen with conference scams is them taking fees for a fake hotel booking, sometimes this is piggybacked on a legit hotel, sometimes there's a fake hotel site to take down too.

It may also be possible they are trading in stolen debit/credit card details. Like Raga Man said, publish in the fakes forum with headers (if possible) and web address please.

p.

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