Insider received the following email from an out of home CEO.

“Hey guys,

I know you have a large reach of people across the Advertising industry so I just wanted to reach out in case you were interested in alerting your followers about the company.

There’s a fake company out there called MBMT LTD, contracting US Billboard and Advertising agencies for large amounts on behalf of a legit company called Renbow Hair Care in the UK. Luckily our fraud department at the bank caught on before any damage was done.

MBMT LTD reached out on behalf of their client, Renbow, who I was told was a hair coloring company out of the UK launching a large marketing campaign in the US. I did some research and both of the companies looked legit…. I sent MBMT LTD a service contract for $60k but they mistakenly sent back a signed contract from another media buyer out of CA in the amount of 50k for the same time period. When I mentioned this to MBMT LTD they apologized for the mixup then sent our signed contract back and said the wire will be there within 5 days. A few days later I received this email and knew something fishy was going on..

“This is to notify you that the payment has been processed to your given account according to the client. The payment is from the ZTR Control Systems, kindly acknowledge the receipt of the payment once you receive it. In the sequel to my telephone conversation with the client regarding the payment, I was apprised that the sum of $100,827.30 has been erroneously paid into your account instead of the calculated amount of $60,000.00.”

“Another vendor payment was included in the amount paid into your account according to the client. Kindly confirm the amount paid and revert to me ASAP, to proceed to reimburse back the difference to the client immediately to be able to initiate the payment back to the vendor to avoid terminating the contract with the vendor.”

After I received this message I figured I’d call that company in CA whose contract was sent to me to see if they had any issues with their payment / contract and that’s when they told me it was all a big fraud and they were pitched a similar story. Their bank had received a cashier’s check from MBMT LTD but their bank would not deposit it because it was coming from a known fraudulent account.

I called my bank right after and put them on notice. I just figured I’d share my experience to help save anyone else the headache.”

Insiders’ take:  A great reminder to be constantly on guard and keep an eye on your bank accounts and the bona fides of new customers. Our experience is that banks do have some security procedures in place, but the best security is always for each of us to be diligent as to what activity we see in our accounts.  Read Watch Your Bank Account to see what can happen if you don’t.  If your bank has procedures which allow you to require more than 1 person to verify and approve every wire transfer or ACH then implement them.

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