I have been scammed

[sajidd]

My name is <removed by support>(holding back last name) and I own a small building materials business out of <removed by support> Pakistan. I had entered in to purchase agreement with a Tianjin, China base company to purchase composite wood products. However during the course of communications I got defrauded by an unknown person having email address similar to my supplier's email address in to wiring two separate wires of USD7723 each to a comapny named Sol Young Enterprises having an account in Cathay United Bank out of Taiwan.

The wire transfers were made on July 8th and 16th respectively.

I did research on the company after I discovered the fraud and found that the company actually put up a fraud warning on their website (see attached).

The fraudster communicated on matters that were private to me and my supplier only and at no point did I suspect any fraud till after we had wired the funds to the specified account advised below:

BANK DETAILS:
BENEFICIARY BANK:CATHAY UNITED BANK TAIPEI TAIWAN
BENEFICIARY ADDRESS:5F NO 65 GUAN CHIEN ROAD TAIPEI TAIWAN
BENEFICIARY NAME:SOL YOUNG ENTERPRISES CO.LTD
BENEFICIARY ACCOUNT NO:011080040409
SWIFT CODE: UWCBTWTP

The content's of fraudster's emails were no different than those being communicated by the real customer. I did not notice the slight variation in email address as I was viewing and responding to emails via blackberry.

The fact that the fraudsters was sending us info that could only be known to the supplier, leads me to believe that the fraudster had hacked in to the suppliers email system. Some of the info given by the fraudster were true and thus no alam bells rung in my mind when the fraudster said that they had problem receiving payments the first time around and now we must send them to a new bank. My bad.

From the website of the company that received our wire transfers,
http://www.youngfast.com.tw/

seems like they are engaged in legitimate business activates. Today I had a friend from Taiwan call and confront them with the fact that they have received two wire transfers from us that needed to be returned. They flatly refused to return the first transfer, allgeing that it was from a legitimate business transaction. And as for the second transfer they told my friend that they have not accepted it. I have asked my bank to put a tracer on the second transfer and also have asked them to recall it.

The most odd thing is that till last week, Cathay United bank in writing had informed me that no wire transfer from us was received by them. This is after I had altered them that I had been frauded in to wiring money to an account in their bank. I told them that this account belonged to a possible fraudster. Also told them that I was shocked and surprised to see a bank of their size and repute allowing a known fraudster company to keep an account.

The reason I say known is because on further investigation on the net I found this website:

http://antifraudintl.org/showthread.php?t=22225

Anyway, today suddenly Cathay United bank changed their story and said that they had made a mistake and that indeed our wire transfer from July 8th was credited to Sol Young's account on the 10th. I find this very puzzling and almost suspect of someone in the bank being part of the scam.

I sent a pretty detailed email to Sol Young today asking them to return my wire transfers if they were a true and legit company and if they failed to do so then I would certainly push this matter to as far as i could, ie involve police, central bank of taiwan and the interpol.


If Sol Young is indeed a clean business then to what purpose the fraud person made us wire the money to their company? i don't know and cant understand. Perhaps someone in the company is receiving these transfers and pocketing them?

I have all the emails from fraudsters and would love it if someone from this forum could trace and pinpoint the exact origin.

In addition I would welcome any insight / suggesstions on this matter.

Sincerely

Sajid

[sajidd]

Bump. Help.