Since this discussion is about online scams, I want to let people know about my experience and why they should ALWAYS be mindful of how they deal with people online.
I work in the logistics business and we just inaugurated our office in a different country. It was imperative for us to get a local shipping provider or some kind of logistics business on our side as our vessels were preoccupied with other duties. Naturally, that task fell on me and I did some digging online.
I came across a company (which has since deactivated their social media and has gone off the radar) and they offered me a good rate (or so I thought). I paid them an advance and they generated an invoice for the rest. I had to sign off on the rest of the payment invoice so that I become liable to pay it (which is a local law, as they claimed). It was only then that I received a message from one of our previous partners, Growmore Logistics.
Growmore Logistics said that they wanted to take a look at the agreement and appraise it as a complementary service. I figured it'd do no harm and I sent it to them. They appraised it and then showed me two things: firstly, that in between the lines, the other company had added an extra zero to increase the payable amount tenfold. And secondly, they had just copied a sample logistics payment proposal off the internet and had just modified the template.
They had asked for the payment to be made across the internet to an off shore account (which would have been difficult to trace). Also the payment method involved logging into a portal and submitting details and synching my phone to it (likely to not just steal the money but also my data). When I confronted the company about it, they went silent and never contacted me again.
I realized there and then that they are scamming people and were about to scam me. If it hadn't been for our other partner company, my bank account would have been drained. So from this escapade, I learned two major things: 1) if the online payment method is too complex, don't go for it and 2) get all documents from an online retailer verified and cross checked before making any deals.
