Delinquent Money Collection Scam

Welcome to Scamwarners scammeddude.
Looking back through this topic, nobody seems to have considered this scam from the viewpoint of the alleged debtor. Although with hindsight, it's quite likely that a scammed lawyer could start chasing you before realising he's been scammed.
This wouldn't explain the lawyers' recently created websites though, so I'm rather puzzled. Can you confirm that the attorneys exist by checking Directory Enquiries, and post the website addresses you mention here.
I'm from the UK, so can't advise about any effect on your credit record.

I just received this email. It is similar to the others but seems updated "for the current economic situation."

I am a lawyer but don't practice so it seemed weird to receive this request in my gmail account... Here's the email. Let me know if I can help any more. R...

rom [email protected]
to
date Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 11:09 PM
subject Cergasoil: Attorney Requisition
hide details 11:09 PM (16 hours ago)

Reply


Sir/Madam:

We wish to retain your services to facilitate in the retrieval of delinquent accounts and holdings from our customers in the United States. These accounts have been delinquent for a while, due to the current economic crisis in the United States, and we have been lenient enough to give a credit period of 3 months, which started in the month of October in the year, 2008, before requesting payments. We would like for the accounts to be mediated and closed before the end of the incoming quarter. We believe that all owed funds to our company will be made payable contingent upon acquiring the assistance of your office. Also, the companies that have disarray with have been legitimate to our company for years so we believe and hope that the need for litigation will not arise. We would like to receive your retainer agreement, rates and all other essential material regarding your firm's compensation policies. These, and all other material, can be communicated via the company's presidents email address, [email protected] and also copying [email protected] for secretarial references.
We look forward to your reply
Sincerely,
Cisero Ong
Cergas Oil & Engineering Co. Ltd

If any company is getting harassed by these lawyers, just send them a link to this thread and I doubt you will hear from them again.

http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1578

On another note, the best place to report this scam to is either the US Postal Inspection Service or the Secret Service. You can find a field office here:

http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml

http://www.usps.com/ncsc/locators/find-is.html


More company names:

J & A Mitchell Steel Fabricators, Inc.
Clingan Steel, Inc.
Allen Canning Co.
American Controls, Inc.
All-Pro Roofing & Construction, Inc.
All-Temp Weatherstrip Co.
John Howard Company Inc.
Berkshire Investment Securities
Merchant Trading LTD

Edit: and some new ones:

Carpenter Co. Richmond, VA
Dallas Bag & Burlap Co. Inc. Dallas, TX
Dixie Textile & Supply Co. Orlando, FL
Lee Dyeing Company of North Carolina, Inc. Johnstown, NY.
Thompson Global Financial
Nissen Company Limited Tokyo Japan

To: Rdub

It seems as though "Cisero Ong" is at it again.

As mentioned above, all relevant information relating to "Cisero Ong," "Stephen
Tia Lhong," and "Cergas Oil & Engineering Co. Ltd" (see also http://www.cergasoil.com, [email protected], [email protected]) has been provided to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) (see http://www.ic3.gov), and others.

Hopefully that will make the lives of Messrs. "Ong" and "Lhong" and their compatriots a whole lot more interesting in the days to come.

Moderator note: The lawyer's names and websites listed here are legitimate lawyers. Their information is being used by the scammers. -Jillian

Hey guys! Thanks for the advice. So far I have ignored them. The letters were sent in the fall of 08. I have not heard from them since. After reading this thread, I assume if they are real lawyers then they have figured out they were being scammed. I don't really understand what they would think they would gain by doing this. I mean, what idiot would pay 1.2million that they didn't owe. The lawyer is not going to make anything or have anything to send to the scammer, so how would they benefit by doing this? The only explanation I could think of would be that if they pulled this on a large enough corporation some pencil pusher might see the fake invoice and threat from the lawyer and pay it before the scam is discovered, but that seems very unlikely to me.

The websites belonging to the supposed lawyers are:

http://www.attorneycollectionsnow.com - Archie Ackerman (mod note: Legitimate lawyer whose name is being abused by a scammer)

Removed at the request of the lawyer whose name was used -Jillian

If i should hear from them again I will definitely take further steps, but I doubt they will contact me again. Im sure they just moved on to their next intended victim.

I really do appreciate your advice!


Moderator edit: I have been contacted by Archie Ackerman who is a legitimate attorney. His name and website are being used for this scam. He has disabled the above website so that the scammers can not continue to use it. Thank you for contacting me, Archie. -Jillian

Further note: I have also been contacted by the other individual whose name was used. He is a legtimate lawyer and in no way connected to this scam. At his request I have removed his name and website from this post. Jillian

To: scammeddude

Having looked at their Web sites quickly, they seem like legitimate attorneys. That would be easy to ascertain from the South Carolina and Florida Bar Associations. Assuming they are legit, they may have realized by now that they were scammed -- and you were too.

If they ever contact you again, you should (1) tell them about the scam, and ask if they are aware of it; and (2) indicate that you do not expect any further "enforcement efforts" by them, or actions will be taken with the bar associations of their respective states (e.g., alleging that despite having apprised them of the scam, they continued to pursue you, and hence they have become complicit in the wrongdoing).

I seriously doubt they would want to risk the right to practice law.

Good luck.

Hello, I wanted to thank the gentleman who called me yesterday to warn me about some checks we were getting ready to recieve. At first it took me back a bit. I wanted to know how this man got my contact info and what I was doing with my company. He gave me this website to check out and I found this site to be incredible. We get those idiotic scam emails all the time. They all get deleted from the junk folder without getting opened up. However, this one seemed to be credible. We have international accounts and it was no surprise to recieve another one. We always go thru the same process of checking out the company and see where they stand on finances. After a lengthy proposal preperation we recieved it back thru email. Our first red light goes on when everything has to go thru emails in the first place. The second redlight was we recieved a second email requesting a retainership / proposal agreement to be sent to them after we recieved the first one back signed (with a stamped signature - that was a redlight also). The final redlight that was set off was they wanted us to keep our modest $25,000 up front retainer from the proceeds being sent to us from their client. I knew at this point we had an international scammer. They sent me an email wanting to confirm my office physical address. I sent them an email back wanting to know where the company files were (of the supposed client) and all sensitive correspondence was to be sent to my PO Box. I have sent them several requests and no answers. I believe they know they have contacted the wrong company.

(2nd pg)
Sorry for the lengthy post but I want everyone to know how this proceeded. The company (scammer) info is as follows:

Chun Yuan Steel Industries Ltd. ( a ligite company)
email: [email protected] (scammer)

We are a detective agency and not a law firm (we do have a corporate attorney). We do alot of work for lawyers around the world and here in the US. I doubt if we recieve the checks but if we do I am going to make a photo copy as a souvenier and frame it to show how close we got to being scammed and who knows, if it were not for the great people from this site administration we may have been scammed as well. Great work!!!!

Welcome Pilotmackey!

I'm glad to hear you were prevented from losing any money! Everyone at scamwarners is a volunteer, but to us, our reward is knowing that a potential victim is safe. And don't be surprised if you still get a check--the scammers often move fast because they want you to act before you have time to think it through, so they might have sent one out before they knew for sure that they lost you. As you said, it would be a good souvenir and reminder of what's out there.

Scams evolve over time, and it seems like some scammers have realized that their fake companies were not fooling many attorneys (and their websites keep disappearing at inconvenient times, thanks to the folks at 419eater and AA419 ). As a result, many have started piggybacking onto legitimate companies to get past that initial investigation.

One thing to look for is the email address--in this day, for less than $10 a month, you can have a website hosted that allows you 100 or more email addresses under your domain name. (Another nonprofit I work for pays less than $7 a month and gets up to 2,500 addresses). So why would someone who represents the company have a hotmail or yahoo address? Of course the answer is that they don't have access to the real company's resources, so they just make up an address that looks close. This is the same reason you can't mail anything to them--they don't have access to the real company's snail mail--they often aren't even in the same country.

Feel free to stop back and post some of these scams as you receive them--getting the scammer names out there really does make a difference--in some cases, just having a scammer or company name on this site for google to pick up has saved a potential victim.

Hi Pilot

Welcome to Scamwarners.

The other support team members have already given you all the advice you need so no point in me going into detail as well.
There is one point that I would like to make however, before framing that cheque, please be sure to write fake on it, being involved with law yourself you most likely know more about that than I do but just on the offchance I thought I should mention it is illegal in most parts of the world to be in possession of a fraudulent financial instrument

Welcome Pilot, I was the one who called you. Thanks for posting up that info, and I'm glad we could be of service.

Update: Just got an email today stating that a cheque has been sent via express mail. Of course, no response from prior emails requesting company files of delinquent accounts. I did, however, sent them an email back advising them to call my office immediately concerning the payment. I willl be contacting the company the fraudulant cheque was written from. Once again I want to thank you for keeping an "EYE" out on scammers.
Outstanding work!!!!!!

In the words of one of our great leaders here, "We do what we can"

I am glad that we could help you, and it is nice to hear it from those we can help

I am an attorney and replied as well. The offer of an evergreen retainer was enticing, and I decided to run a search on the internet for the company, and I found this great site. The promise that I would receive a replenishing $25,000 retainer for collection cases seemed suspicious, especially after contacting my web site and carefully considering the contents. Well my website shows that my primary practicw is in family law and not in collections. I sure hope that other lawtyers are not lured into this scam. Here was my message, but I do not know how to attach headers, but I am atttaching it here. Thanks,
Thank you for your response to my inquiry for legal services.
We have been able to establish that delinquent or past due accounts in about
five states in the U.S,running over $2,850,506 and about a year or more over due
in some cases.


There has been no complaints made about our products,no payment has been made
with several previous attempt to make collection in these accounts ending
negatively.
Matila Manufacturing Pte Ltd ,would have been settled if we had a reputable
lawyer/ firm representing our organization in collections or possible law
suit,hence Matila Manufacturing Pte Ltd is willing to maintain an evergreen
retainership fee of $25,000US,to demonstrate to you,we are ready to work with
you on collections on delinquent accounts.
At this moment it will not be proper for me to provide you with list of
delinquent accounts or the copy of a typical contract/copies of invoices until
there is client–attorney engagement / relationship.


Below are the areas we would require your expertise.
1), Provide legal consultation,collections of delinquent accounts,required
representation / bring actions in court against the delinquent customers based
on agreed amount per hour or percentage on collection made.
Please accept my sincerest appreciation for your willingness to render your
services, as we look forward to your prompt response to my email. If you have
any questions contact me personally anytime by email.


Best Regards,
Patrick Chan
[email protected]

Hi risley and welcome. I'm glad to hear that you took the time to search and the search lead you here. Good for you for being careful.

Thank you for posting the information, it will help the next person who takes the time to search.