Warning: African Electronics fraudsters land in Europe

July 14, 2010

One thought that electronics and cell phone fraud was limited to African countries: But today Electronics fraudsters have evolved by masquerading themselves as European companies – mainly, as French companies. The outline of the fraud is known: a company posing as an Electronics distributor contacts vendor by mail or fax in another country. It asks to open an account with them, to purchase Electronic goods. On first effective delivery (sometimes the second, in order to better lull their victim), a 30-day payment is asked. Once products are delivered, the buyer disappears forever.

Until now, fraudsters acted as African resellers (mainly from Ivory Coast and Nigeria). Now, they pose as European distributors. They register domain names, which are similar to those of existing companies and launch website with similar names. They even place their orders as real employees of the existing company since companies they masquerade have positive credit ratings.

How to get protected

If an Electronics vendor, reseller or distributor gets a spontaneous inquiry from a foreign company, it should thoroughly check their inquiry’s form: often, a broken language is used (one cannot ask the fraudsters to be clever with spelling). This simple fact should make the contacted company suspicious. In case of doubt, the contacted company should then make sure that:

In case of difference in the address (invoice and/or delivery, especially if delivery address is a freight company), the phone number or the domain name, the contacted company should refuse the sale, warn directly the real company and report the fraudsters to the relevant authorities. The contacted company can also report the fraudster to Wireless Association .

Posted By Russ · In Industry 

One Response to “Warning: African Electronics fraudsters land in Europe”

  1. jacob cohen on July 20th, 2010 12:16 pm

    Beware Of ECD LTD U.K. – we had an agreement for them to ship us BRAND NEW merchandise and everything we received from them was thrown in the box, used, damaged including RIPPED packaging. After confronting them about the matter they immediately removed $10 per packaging as if it was going to calm down the fact that the merchandise was indeed damaged goods. They CLAIMED that the products they shipped was BRAND NEW and when we took photos to disproved them, they right away stated that we SWITCHED the merchandise with used merchandise which obviously is NOT true.

    We have statements from others we deal with that this company has done the same to them as they did to us. We clearly gave them more then enough chances to take back this garbage merchandise and refund our money but they continue to make excuses and refuse to do so claiming we switched the merchandise. This is a CLEAR WARNING TO EVERYONE, Please do not let the same thing happen to you! Beware when you DEAL WITH ECD LTD U.K.

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