BEWARE!! Scammers trawling cars sales sites!

Just last week a member of the Oratory Commerce team was trying to sell her car. Very quickly there was an email response stating that not only was this potential buyer interested, but they definitely wanted to buy the car ASAP and were willing to pay upfront before even viewing the vehicle and were so adamant they wanted it that they would not only match the asking price but actually pay more! Great! Or maybe – too good to be true?

Unfortunately, car sales sites are riddled with this kind of scam. But don’t worry, the scam is easily detectable. Firstly, you are likely to receive several emails all very similar. Here is how the scam rolls out:

• The email address will originate from webmail accounts, such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail and be poorly written, or look as though they’re being sent in bulk with the seller’s car details crudely pasted in

• The scam artist will encourage sellers to use money transfer services such as Western Union

The scenarios vary, but usually take the following shape of events:

• The “buyer” arranges for a cheque to be sent from a third party to the seller for the asking price of the car – plus extra to cover the cost of shipping abroad

• The seller pays the cheque into their bank and is pressured by the fraudster into sending the “shipping fee” abroad immediately via a legitimate electronic money transfer company

• A few days later, the seller will be informed by the bank that the cheque was a fake

• The seller hears no more from the scam artist and has no way of getting the shipping fee back

So, beware – if you’re selling a car, be prepared to barter! A genuine buyer will be after a bargain.

Are employees scamming their bosses?

Sick days cost the economy about £2bn a year and according to CBI research, 15% of these are fake!

However, the good news for smaller businesses like Oratory Commerce in Liverpool, is that ‘sickies’ are much more common in larger companies.
It’s often the punch line of a joke told at the local pub after a few pints and naive as it may seem, a lot of people do not see that what they are doing is actually a scam. And for business owners, those in authority are left with little options to prevent paid sick leave for employees who are more than well. The recently introduced ‘fit note’, which ensures that GPs, employers and staff focus on what an employee can do, not what they can’t, was mostly welcomed. The initiative, which replaced sick notes in April, was praised by 76% of those polled as ‘likely to get people back to work sooner’ rather than having to accept bogus sick days as the right of an employee.

Unfortunately, it’s not only the directors of companies that are being scammed but also those honest hard working members of staff. The workers that are left to pick up the extra work load are those that are affected the worst by this scam.
The statistics for those who are self employed are very different however, with the self employed apparently being a lot healthier! In Liverpool, the absence rate due to sickness is no doubt the same as across the rest of the nation, but here at Oratory Commerce, where we contract out work to 25+ self employed representatives, spirits are high and so are attendance records!