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Nigerian Advance Fee Scam Targets B&B Owners
Posted on Dec 30, 2006 by
Just heard an interesting twist on an old scam. The Nigerian scam, also known as the advance fee scam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud), gets a lot of press but surprisingly it’s still a very successful scam. A new variation of the scam targets small businesses such as bed and breakfasts (B&Bs). B&B owners can get inundated by e-mail requests for reservations – the emails usually come from England. The individual asks the price for a large group of people to stay for a number of nights at the B&B. According to one B&B owner, she gets a number of these requests each week from different email addresses, which tells me that the scammers are having good success with this approach.
The first time she received a request for a price quote, she considered it legitimate and responded with the price. The sender then wrote that he would like to book the rooms, but he only wanted to pay one party – so he would write her a check for thousands of dollars more than the price of the rooms and after the B&B owner deposited the entire amount into her bank account, he would need the B&B owner to write a check from her own account and send it to their group's travel agent who would take care of all the flights and other expenses. Fortunately, the B&B owner was cautious and didn’t fall for the scam, but I’m sure that there are plenty that do.
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