I recently received an enquiry from a customer who was looking to book some charters with me this summer. He was looking for three boats for three days for himself and five clients, who would all be coming to Toronto for the trip. There was a lot of back and forth via e-mail haggling over price etc. I won’t bore you with the details, let’s just say that we came to an agreement on price and timing etc. and confirmed the booking. At this time he enquired as to how he could make payment to me, I provided him with the payment options Euro Canadian Outfitters offers , cheque, cash, credit card. He eventually opted to pay by cheque and informed me that payment would be sent out that day.

The next day I received another e-mail informing me that he had sent me €4,000.00 (Euros) which he had (Approx. $5,240.00 CDN), and a Canada Post tracking number. He also included instructions on how to fill out the travellers cheques prior to depositing.

Two days later I received a Canada Post Xpresspost envelope which had been mailed from Saskatchewan. Having never received payment in the form of travellers cheques before I was glad of the instructions as I really didn’t have a clue what to do with them. I filled out the cheques as he had instructed and took them to the bank, I have to say that it seemed a little strange that someone would mail such a large amount of money via Canada Post, but getting such a large booking so early in the season doesn’t happen too often so i was glad of the business and gave him the benefit of the doubt.

When I went to the bank the lady behind the counter asked me where I got the cheques from, I went on to explain all of the above to her and she seemed somewhat concerned. She then asked me if it would be OK if she called American Express to verify the cheques, I said of course please do. When she returned she informed me that the cheques were counterfeit, and that the bank would have to keep them. Naturally I was very disappointed, but in all honesty I was not totally surprised. Someone once told me that if anything seems too good to be true, it generally is.

I am still waiting for the Police to contact me to discuss the situation further. Yesterday I put all off the e-mails from the customer onto a DVD and dropped them off to the bank along with the Xpresspost packaging and its contents. I hope to hear from the Police shortly as I am very curious to hear what they have to say.

After speaking to a few people who have been victims of similar credit card scams, I can only assume that if the cheques had gone into my account the customer would have e-mailed to cancel one or all days fishing, and then further asked for some kind of refund. That is the only way that we can think of that these people get paid from scams like this, however this is pure speculation at this time, I will post an update after I hear what the Police have to say.

I hope by posting this I help some of you out there to avoid being duped by these Bandits!

Cheers,
Shaun