We have been made aware of a particularly nasty scam that everybody dealing across international borders should be aware of. Somebody hacked into their Yahoo email account and saw that they had agreed to purchase a machine.  After the vendor emailed the invoice they copied the invoice, changed the bank details and then contacted the buyer saying that the account number had changed. Had the purchaser looked closely they would have noticed that the email address was not the correct email address rather the [email protected].  The purchaser then made a bank transfer into the fake account thinking it belonged to the supplier.  Luckily on this occasion the customer was able to intervene with the Police and got their funds returned, but others might not be so lucky.

We have come up with some helpful tips to help avoid becoming the victim of a scam whether you are buying or selling machinery or parts:

• Check every detail on the invoice carefully
• Always call the company in person to verify the bank details
• Cross reference contact details with the company’s website
• If in doubt check, double check and triple check everything
• Be alert for any suspicious correspondence about changes to bank details