Quatloos!

As many of you know, I am a partner in a small law firm whose practice is entirely plaintiff's medmal, products, labor law and the like. We do no commercial work at all. We just received the following email:

This is an official requisition for your legal consultation services on behalf of Kaosha
Textile Company Ltd.
We are based in Taiwan and our principal activity is manufacturing cotton yarn,mixed
spinning yarn, chemical fiber yarn, embryo cloth, RTW clothes and knitwear.Other activities include constructing, leasing and selling residential and commercial buildings and provision of investment services We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers in USA and we request for your services accordingly.
We got your contact information from the state of USA lawyers Directory as a result of our
search for a reliable firm or individual to provide legal services as requested. After a
careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the
opinion that your are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as
requested.Please accept my sincerest appreciation on behalf of Kaosha Textile Company Ltd,in advance for your willingness to render your services as we look forward to your prompt response to our request.Thank you.

Xu Haung,
General Manager
Kaosha Textile Co. Ltd.
Taiwan. R.O.C
Contact us: kaosha_textile@yahoo.com.hk
Website: http://www.kaosha.com.tw

Google shows that Kaosha Textile is a real company in Taiwan. The reply email address, though, is at yahoo.com.hk - ridiculous, of course.

I'm insulted. How dumb do these phishers think we are?

wserra wrote:As many of you know, I am a partner in a small law firm whose practice is entirely plaintiff's medmal, products, labor law and the like. We do no commercial work at all. We just received the following email:

This is an official requisition for your legal consultation services on behalf of Kaosha
Textile Company Ltd.
We are based in Taiwan and our principal activity is manufacturing cotton yarn,mixed
spinning yarn, chemical fiber yarn, embryo cloth, RTW clothes and knitwear.Other activities include constructing, leasing and selling residential and commercial buildings and provision of investment services We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers in USA and we request for your services accordingly.
We got your contact information from the state of USA lawyers Directory as a result of our
search for a reliable firm or individual to provide legal services as requested. After a
careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the
opinion that your are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as
requested.Please accept my sincerest appreciation on behalf of Kaosha Textile Company Ltd,in advance for your willingness to render your services as we look forward to your prompt response to our request.Thank you.

Xu Haung,
General Manager
Kaosha Textile Co. Ltd.
Taiwan. R.O.C
Contact us: kaosha_textile@yahoo.com.hk
Website: http://www.kaosha.com.tw

Google shows that Kaosha Textile is a real company in Taiwan. The reply email address, though, is at yahoo.com.hk - ridiculous, of course.

I'm insulted. How dumb do these phishers think we are?

They think you're as dumb as they are.

An oddly similar one is going around to firms that specialize in commercial property leasing and title matters. It implies they are holding several million cubic feet of LPG and need an agent in the US to act on their behalf.

Ponzi Scheme Targets Law Firms
Zack Needles
The Legal Intelligencer
December 08, 2008
The Legal Ingelligencer has received word that scam artists attempting to dupe firms into wiring money in exchange for fake cashier's checks have targeted a number of Pennsylvania law firms.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Schenck, Chief of the Fraud Section for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said he has received a number of reports from Pennsylvania firms that have encountered different variations of the Ponzi scheme.
Basically, the scam works like this: A con artist, posing as a representative from a legitimate overseas -- usually Far Eastern -- company, contacts a U.S. firm by e-mail and requests its services in collecting money from a delinquent customer in either the U.S. or Canada.
Soon after the firm agrees to take the company on as a client, a representative from the company e-mails the firm to say that when it notified the deadbeat customer that a law firm had been retained to collect the debt, the customer agreed to pay at least some of the money owed.
But then things really get fishy.
The company sends the firm a cashier's check for the amount the debtor paid them -- say, $200,000 -- with instructions to place the money in an escrow account, deduct the necessary legal fees and wire the balance back to the company.
The firm complies but finds out soon after that the cashier's check is counterfeit.
Now the firm's out hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the client is suddenly unreachable.
According to the Broward Daily Business Review, Atlanta securities lawyer Gregory Bartko fell victim to a similar scheme earlier this year and became a defendant in a federal suit filed by Wachovia seeking nearly $200,000 it wired to what Bartko thought was a Korean client collecting a debt from a customer.

With the ability to manufacture checks using a home computer, scanner and modest printer, I see banks offering to "secure" your account against this type of fraud for a nominal fee in the not so distant future.

Burzmali wrote:With the ability to manufacture checks using a home computer, scanner and modest printer, I see banks offering to "secure" your account against this type of fraud for a nominal fee in the not so distant future.

I've had clients who tried to use programs like VersaCheck to create their own checks - rather than pay someone to print the checks and they discovered that pesky MICR problem. You know the one where the bank's machines can't read the check and they have to attach the tab at the bottom, and then when they do it often enough they call you up and yell at you about why printing your own checks just is causing problems.

BTW, MICR printers and the ink run a pretty penny.

Less than you'd imagine these days...

Ebay has a few in the $100 - $200 range. One good faked check and your investment is paid off.