When attorneys have a difficult time discerning scams from legitimate solicitation for legal representation, you know scam artists are upping their game.
Zachary Wilson, a Fort Collins attorney who serves as general counsel for the Better Business Bureau serving Northern Colorado and Wyoming, is a case in point.
The scam, which targets attorneys throughout the U.S. and Canada, works like this: An overseas company contacts a U.S. lawyer by e-mail and retains that attorney as a settlement agent to collect a debt from a U.S. company. The company sends a settlement check to the lawyer, who deposits it into his trust account and then wires the settlement amount, minus his fee, to the “client.” But the settlement check is counterfeit and the lawyer loses the money he wired abroad.
This collection scam has many variations and is continually being updated, according to the BBB, making it difficult to spot immediately. Because of this, the BBB advises attorneys and their staffs to be wary of business dealings from potential foreign clients that are initiated via e-mail.
In Wilson’s case, he was contacted by a supposed British traffic control systems company that wanted to pursue a collection action against a Colorado-based electronics parts company. Both checked out as legitimate businesses. “It sounded like a standard collection,” Wilson said. “A company had provided valuable goods for which they were not paid.”
Wilson became suspicious, however, when he received a follow-up letter thanking him for his “wonderful retainer letter.”
“What kind of businessman talks about a retainer letter being wonderful?” he asks. The second letter, unlike the perfectly written first, contained awkward grammar and misspellings. Wilson was suspicious.
Rather than deposit the check as instructed, Wilson delivered it to his bank for investigation. “It was fraudulent,” said Wilson, adding that the scam “was pretty sophisticated.”
Attorneys that receive such e-mails should forward them to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov as well as to the BBB at wynco.bbb.org.
Start With Trust. For reliable small business advice, visit wynco.bbb.org or call 970-484-1348 or 800-564-0371.
About the BBB
The Better Business Bureau, founded in 1912, is a champion for ethics and trust in the marketplace. Only businesses that meet the high BBB standards are invited to become BBB Accredited Businesses. Today, 123 BBBs across the United States and Canada rate more than 4 million local and national businesses and charities with scores ranging from A+ to F. Only a BBB Accredited Business may elect to participate in BBBOnLine, one of the most trusted and recognized Internet seal programs in the world.
The BBB serving northern Colorado and Wyoming topped 1.1 million instances of service to consumers and businesses in the last 12 months. These services include reliability reports on local companies and charities, access to companies that can be trusted by industry, help with dispute resolution, and trustworthy information on consumer and business topics.
Luanne Kadlub, BBB media relations manager, 970-488-2044 lkadlub@wynco.bbb.org