Heart rule my head… Moi?

I saw my old car yesterday.

Very strange because I never thought I would be able to recognise it. I was walking down a local village high street when I spotted a small scrape on the rear of a wing mirror. It was caused when I drove up to a car park exit booth and the wing mirror just scraped the casing. So fine that it took a thin sliver of paint off, a scrape that you couldn’t replicate even if you tried!

And that was what I saw yesterday.

I got rid of that car, a Jaguar XKR cabriolet, because my head told me that it wasn’t financially viable. With the cost of petrol seemingly rising on a daily basis it had become just too expensive to run. So I over ruled my heart and quite sensibly said goodbye to ‘my car’ and replaced it with a very nice looking Audi A5 cabriolet with a diesel engine. Much more economical.

But it wasn’t until yesterday that I realised that actually I’m not very sensible at all!

When I saw ‘the Jag’ I realised that driving in the Audi had become boring. Don’t get me wrong the Audi is a very reliable car, very functional, very German. And the Germans have after all set the standard for cars.

But just…… boring.

I realised that I no longer enjoy driving….. anywhere. Driving has become an activity like walking up the stairs, it’s something you have to do to get from one place to another.

I no longer get up early of a morning ‘just to go for a drive’ with the roof down. I don’t jump in the car to pop up the shops when I don’t need to go shopping. And I don’t relish the idea of taking the hood down no matter what the weather.

So yesterday when I saw ‘my car’ I realised that I was right to let it go and get a sensible car, because financially I’m tons better off. But actually my heart still yearns for the joy of ‘the Jag’. A car that when you drive it you feel happy, you feel emotional, you experience joy at the responsiveness, the thrill as the exhaust burbles and the sheer delight of being ‘at one’ with ‘the car’.

So let my heart rule my head… Moi? Most definitely! (next time!)

Only just heard about Gary Speed. Shocke

Only just heard about Gary Speed. Shocked to hear. Very sad. http://ow.ly/7GaYM

Limited Company Abuse Still Rife

Bad debt can be personal

I’ve run a marketing agency with my wife since 1988. Through a combination of financial checking, a dose of good clients and a sprinkling of luck, we’ve managed to avoid too many bad debts.

Generally we’ve only had bad debts when clients have hit problems, that is, the bad debt had not been solely of their making but through external factors. But Limited liability company status still allows unscrupulous business directors to abuse this protection to avoid paying legitimate debt.

We had two bad debts over the past 5 years which illustrate that Limited liability status can be used the right way or the wrong way.

Client 1: was a property company. We had done significant branding, launching and ongoing marketing promotion activities with them over a 3 year period. They were always very open with us and always paid on time. Then the recession hit and property companies got hit hard, as did our client. The directors talked to us, asked if their current debt could be paid on an agreed schedule and halted any further work to ensure their debt did not increase. We agreed to this approach, but unfortunately the market got the better of them and they had to suspend trading. We ended up with a bad debt of a significant size, which we had to write off.

Client 2: was an art company. We had already carried out a lot of marketing activities for the art company managing director, but this was working with him in a different company. Our mistake was not carrying out a financial check on the newly created art company – we had already completed financial checks on the existing company. We started work after receiving an official order from the art company, completed the work, had it approved and then we invoiced. Then the company delayed and delayed and delayed payment. We had numerous conversations where the director promised payment both verbally and in writing. When the debt had become too old we started legal action to retrieve the debt. At this stage the director informed us that he was shutting the art company down and that they no longer had any assets. He then started a new company in the same business area with the same products but with a different name. When challenged about this he was openly callous about the fact that the art company was a punt that didn’t work out as it had been set up and he had no intention of paying the debt, then or when he first ordered. He became verbally abusive and taunting by openly inviting us to “just try and get money from the company”.  In essence he was using our money and other suppliers to fund a business that he knew was a risk and the risk capital was ours and other suppliers. He was abusing the protection of Limited company status and in the process affecting other businesses. Fortunately for us the debt was small and manageable. However, further investigation by us showed that this director had done this before, was a director of numerous companies and I would imagine will do this again.

It hurts – but not financially

Of the two, the debt from client 1 was the largest. The debt from client 2, was minimal but it hurt the most. It hurt because we made the fatal mistake of trusting someone from a successful business relationship, assuming that same trust would be carried through to the second company. We are not blameless because we didn’t carry out the financial checks. However, this company director’s blatant disregard to suppliers was a demonstration of how human nature can abuse the law. It hurt because the director openly and blatantly used our company with no intention of paying when the order was placed. Worse is the fact that the law enables a business person with this moral and ethical approach to start, run and close a business with no penalties. We could have chased him through the courts but he knew that the small size of the debt meant that we would have spent 10 times the amount on legal expenses and when the courts found in our favour (which the solicitor said they would) it would be unlikely that we would receive any money or that the director would be struck off. So in essence he knew and abused the law to his ends. Frustrated does not explain how we felt. Hurt does not always mean financially hurt, businesses are run by peopel with feelings as well.

But there are good directors out there…

While there must be hundreds of directors that have this same view and abuse other suppliers, there is hope as good human nature does shine through.

This week, three years later, the directors of client 1 contacted us. They apologised again for the debt that they had caused, even though the sudden and dramatic market downturn was something they couldn’t have planned for. Since their company closed they had started a new company in a different business area and were now in a situation to clear their three year old debt. They have no legal requirement to clear this debt, their company folded and hey we’re operating within the law. However, as  business people, with strong business ethics and commendable personal morals they have a personal requirement to operate professionally and a personal desire to clear the debt. All I can say to this is ‘how refreshing’.

I believe as I said that our business approach and not dealing with companies that have poor financial ratings has protected us through so many years of trading. But it is a lesson to be learnt that you can never assume or trust always check.

Memory calls…

As a final note I wanted to recall a memory that has sat with me which now becomes relevant. As a young lad I remember sitting with my parents watching Esther Ranzen on That’s Life. I was too young to understand but I vividly remember a business article that got ‘out of hand’. It was basically about a team of directors that had set up a company, transferred the assets and products – legally – to a second company, shut down the first company and told all their suppliers that they couldn’t pay. Their new company was called exactly the same bt with a 2 on the end of the name. Same products, same directors and no liability to their old suppliers. It got out of hand because the show introduced directors to their disgruntled suppliers.

The show ended with Esther saying that the law had to be changed to stop directors flouting the law…. seems that never happened.

Have you ever experienced this?

I can’t believe that we are the only company that has been abused in this manner.We are fortunate that a vitriolic debt has only occurred once since 1988. Have you ever experienced situations like this? What happened? And how have you recovered? I’d be interested to know

Frustration of Fibre

I blogged about #BT #Infinity installation in Bracknell being delayed for another 12 months – that’s a 24 month delay in total now from December 2010 to a new projected install in Dec 2012. My frustration mounted further today around the whole fibre issue.

When we first moved  to Bracknell over 25 years ago we moved to a housing estate that had cable TV installed. At that time CATV was not common and was associative with ‘out of the way’ areas that couldn’t get a terrestrial TV signal. At that stage I had been lucky enough to work for Wang computers and had been responsible for launching a ‘new type of corporate network’ based around CATV cable. Something that was common place in the US but not here in the UK. The benefits of CATV networking were amazing – at that time – you could use it for both voice and data (wow!). Seems laughable now but then it was state of the art.

Anyway, when we saw new houses in Bracknell being built with cable I was extolling the virtues and talking about how TV and telephone could ‘one day’ use this cable. Not a visionary just lucky enough to get involved early. A series of companies, starting with Phillips and moving through Telewest (I think), NTL and then Virgin took over the cable. But our estate – for reasons beyond me – was not connected to the main cable network in Bracknell whch today provides high speed Virgin broadband, VOIP and TV. So for TV we switched from cable TV to Sky Satellite which gave us just what we wanted.

On broadband though we were stuck with BT dial-up, we installed Satellite broadband from BT at one stage – incredibly expensive for home and speed and quality was appalling – but faster than dial-up. Then we moved back to dial-up and when BT put in ADSL we migrated over to broadband at speeds a bit above dial-up. Today, we have a line ‘capable of 2Mb’ but delivering shared broadband speeds of 1MB maximum (at low times, 3am in the morning etc) and an average during normal peak times of 760k.

Today I though  I’d talk to Virgin Media (@virginmedia/#virginmedia) about how to get our housing estate cable linked into the main Virgin Media network which ends about 500 yards from my house. They came straight back with a tweet response saying talk to the sales guys. Who I spoke to and who were very friendly but basically what I want is out of the norm i.e. it’s not a straight broadband sale more of a business proposition.

So back to my frustration with fibre. I reckon there are at least 500-1,500 houses around here that have cable but no fibre broadband. I reckon I could get a major percentage of these owners to commit to signing up for Virgin Media all-in-one package, like me people are fed up waiting for BT and incredibly hacked off with 12 month delays being posted without any rhyme or reason.

But my frustration is that I can’t get to the people at Virgin that could say yes or no. It may be that Virgin need 50,000 properties to make it viable or 500 – I’ve no idea. All I do know is there is a cable network in place that used to provide cable TV and that must be a source of revenue to a switched on broadband/TV company that wants to switch on users.

So if you happen to know Richard Branson (@richardbranson/#richardbranson) or anyone at Virgin Media that wants to talk about a possible increase in revenue by linking their cable network to an existing cable network 500 yards away, tell them to tweet me.

 

 

No such thing as a free lunch or a free website?

If you are looking to build a website then suddenly you become acutely aware that there are a number of website building options open to you. And suddenly you see that there are ‘free’ website builder packages available. As an ex-techie, free websites that I can build myself suddenly appeal. I can get my hands dirty, get underneath the code (so to speak) and start to make things happen.

When a friend wanted a website for his jewellery business, he didn’t have a lot of money to spend so wanted to opt for a free website option. Which he did. Then when he started to look around he found that free website builders fell into three main categories:

1. Those that were ‘bundled’ free with website hosting
2. Those that were ‘free’ because they carried other people’s adverts
3. Those that were free as in open source

Needing hosting he opted for a bundled option first (saying first might give you some idea of what is coming here). Signed up on his 12 month contract and realised that he actually didn’t know enough about the Internet or web sites to actually understand the questions on the order form. So he turned to me where we discussed domains, DNS routing, email MX records etc etc. I got him started. And yes it was free for him because…, because he’s just that, a friend. Actually I did all the work for him. As a friend I didn’t mind doing it. It was just an hour of my time to setup. But actually once he got going and was signed up that hour became more as he needed help on understanding things like, images and pixels and resolution and dimensions and downsampling and, and, and. Then we were into how to add and update the website. To begin with it wasn’t a problem but suddenly he’s only calling me to ask about his website problems. After numerous unpaid hours of advice – which I didn’t mind giving because.. he was a friend… but our friendship was starting to take second place to technical support. Then I said, I didn’t want to become his web support help line. I had a business to run and by the way we provide web sites and while you think his is free it’s not actually because it’s my time. So we agreed that our friendship was more important and he stopped asking me questions.

But of course it didn’t end there.

He decided that an ISP website wasn’t for him. Why? Well the ISP provided 24 hour support. Just that the support requests were 24 hour the response was by email. And the emails didn’t come back quickly and when they did, well they just didn’t make any sense to him, because he didn’t really understand the problem. So he canned that and went for an easier to use website that was ‘free’ because all they did was carry adverts to pay for their free website service.

Well my friend recognised that there are no free websites so he was happy to take a website solution that cost him nothing if it carried free adverts. No problem. Their support was better – but still talking in techno speak (his words not mine) and he got his website up and running eventually. Hurrah!

Friendship retained – tick.

Friend has website – tick.

Friend happy… well he was for a bit. Until one of his long-term customers became one of his ex-customers. They became an ex-customer because they saw an advert on his web site that was promoting cheap gold chains and rings. His ex-customer was off like a shot to buy these, thinking, as you would, that the adverts were part of my friends jewellery business. But alas they weren’t they were just adverts syndicated by the web hosting company and they were competitors.

So, my friend decided that this wasn’t the route for him. He couldn’t have his customers seeing competitive adverts that he was effectively paying for and promoting. So very quickly he shut that down. But he shut it down too quick and lost his domain. A very snappy jewellery domain that had his company name in it. But that had to be written off to experience.

So then he read. He read a lot. He read every web magazine he could find. He trawled the net and discovered the light in a PC techie magazine. The light that is Open Source. Which I might add I am a great supporter of. But because he didn’t want to threaten our relationship further he didn’t talk to me about Open Source. He looked at very good Open Source solutions such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and others. Then he chose one of these. I’m not saying which one – because it doesn’t get any better at this point. And besides, because of what happened it wouldn’t have mattered what solution he had chosen.

He gets his site up and running by paying a third party ‘person’ to set it up, configure it and implement a template. Yes, he said “That wasn’t free either!” Then the person that set it up decided to get himself a job – good for him in this depressed market. But sadly not good for my friend. Because he was left to his own devices. But he’s not stupid so he trawled the internet and found out that you can get plug-ins and widgets that will do the extra things he needed, so he was happy he had a solution.

Everything was fine for several weeks. His website was running, his business was running but so was his mind. What if I could…. and that was when he started investigating the extras seriously. He found one that he needed – free, as it was open source. Downloaded. Installed. And hey presto!  His site wasn’t working anymore.

That was when I got the call. A panic call. I remember it well. A breezy Thursday evening in August when it was meant to be summer in the UK but was so windy and cold it could have been December. “Mark, I need your help. My website isn’t working. I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry, but can you…. help me? It’s urgent”.

And it was. So, first question: Do you have a backup? No, because backup was an extra that he didn’t think about and that didn’t come as an option with the free website. OK, do you have the website of the add-on developer? No. So, I dug and found it but they had stopped supporting it years ago. Not their fault, they openly said that you downloaded and installed the plug-in based on this knowledge.

So then to delve into the depths of the website. The add-in had corrupted some files because of various version changes. But because there were no backups we couldn’t go down the retrieval route. So I said the best thing was to get his database off the website, re-install the template and start again. All sounds great, time-wasting, but it would fix the problem. Just one catch, his data was held in a MySQL database and he didn’t have the passwords. The guy who had set it up was nowhere to be found and so we had a database that he couldn’t open. I found a company that could hack in and they did. It cost him money. Then he had to pay me as he didn’t want me to do this as a friend. So all in all his free website ended up being darned expensive (and yes darned wasn’t the actually word he or I used to describe the “free” website).

He vowed never to darken the doors of the web again.

However, this year we released via Insight (our agency) a web builder product called WebMaker. I didn’t tell my friend, he saw the advertising. So he called and said… I’ve been thinking…

That was 6 months ago. He set up the site himself, because it’s designed to be used by novices and experts alike. He changes the website design virtually every month, because that’s what he wants and it’s designed to enable the owner to change designs as and when they want. He’s added a wide array of website plug-ins as his business on the web has expanded – and because the plug-ins are designed to work with WebMaker they, well they just do. And he can update his website e-commerce section himself because it’s easy to do. He uploads images to his website, edits his news page. He’s even got into loading videos and music to his website. In his mind he’s an expert. He has a website that does what he wants, and which he extends functionality when he wants. And he can manage it from anywhere, at anytime; on his laptop, his phone and his tablet. So he’s happy. And so am I. We’re still friends!

And no, it isn’t free, he took the base option that’s just £7.92 a month and he’s happy with that becasue he gets a really powerful solution for very little money.

He realises that for real people i.e. people that don’t need or want to understand the internet, free is subjective.

What he’s also taught me in this period is that while I have a technical bent, my skills are best used at doing what I’m good at, which is marketing. His free options took a lot of time out of my life. It was enjoyable to begin with getting into the code, but you know what, I don’t want to do that any more, and neither does he or could he.

So the moral. Well it’s no different than it has ever been. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Just focus on what you’re good at and leave the free lunches to those that want to tinker and don’t want to focus on their core business.

The Power of the Internet – or not

It is true the internet is a powerful thing. I don’t believe I could live without it.

But as a BT broadband user I am regularly frustrated at the lack of speed and therefore living with the internet at home is intolerable.

I love gadgets of all types and today most of them revolve around the internet: in-the-cloud services, such as Microsoft Office 365, Apple iCloud, online news; remote access devices such as LogMeIn and film downloads, live sport broadcasts. All of these are either essential for working from home or just fun to use and relax at home.

But when your home broadband speed is less than 1Mb (rated at 1.5Mb but with contention runs on average at 800k) then the internet is definitely not powerful – frustrating, annoying, exclusive – the list of descriptions and emotion is endless.

Last year we were told by BT that our broadband would be upgraded to fibre in Dec 2010. That then shifted – mysteriously, without any notification to Dec 2011. As September 2011 approached the date again shifted to March 2012. Annoying isn’t the word.

BT’s comment “We can’t guarantee when an upgrade will take place.

So today when I found out that it’s shifted again to Dec 2012 – again without notification – my blood boiled.

But what good is getting annoyed going to do? Nothing. BT just deliver the corporate line. Nobody at BT is interested. And, as consumers, paying full broadband pricing to BT we just have to grin and bare it!

The power of the internet, sadly, lies with the provider and not the consumer.

#stevejobs Iconic in life. Iconic in dea

#stevejobs Iconic in life. Iconic in death. http://ow.ly/6OZcd

#TheTimes Sat 12th Feb “Rooney v Tevez

#TheTimes Sat 12th Feb “Rooney v Tevez – rebel rivals.. but who’s the best?” Answer… Sun Times ‘scissor kick victory’ http://ow.ly/3Vu8d

Customer Service Marketing – The Good, The Bad and The Angry!

I’ve written before that customer service is crucial in brand and consumer marketing. For a provincial agency we are always striving to give good customer service. For some reason it seems to be one of those areas that is all too often overlooked and missed by companies. And so again I need to vent my comments on customer service that I have recently experienced. Luckily one of these below optimises the best in customer service.

THE GOOD

OneClick Technologies Ltd (oneclickpower.com)

You may not have come across these guys, but please I implore you to support them by buying their products. They sell a range of eco, energy-saving plugs and adapters that control power consumption. I have one of their multi-socket adapters to control our server at home. I recently moved things around and ‘mislaid’ the cable that links the adapter to the server – basically the intelligent switch that makes it work. My fault. My problem.

So a quick email over the holiday weekend to them to ask how much for a replacement and where I can order one from. And an instant response, by return post – a replacement cable and a brochure on their complete range of products. No questions. No hassle. And it was my stupid fault that I lost the cable but they looked at me as a valuable customer and helped me out. No cost.

Customer service par excellence. Takes service to the next level and incorporates marketing by saying (without saying it) “Look, you bought our products and if we help you out of a jam then we know you’ll come back and you’re likely to tell others about us”. Spot on and probably the cheapest most effective form of customer retention marketing.

OneClick – I applaud you.

THE BAD

SouthWest Trains

I don’t travel by train often, perhaps once or twice a month when I need to go to jolly old Londinium on business. This week I had a business ‘trip in’ and left from my local station on a return ticket to Waterloo. I live one stop East of Bracknell where my office is located (this becomes relevant shortly).

On my way back to Waterloo, mid-afternoon, I’m thinking that an early day is called for! But of course the obligatory call means I need to travel back to the office. I leave Waterloo to travel back to Bracknell – one stop further than my return ticket is booked for. On arriving I seek out the South West Trains platform guards to pay for the extra stop. And there on the platform are two guards. Which I’ll refer to as Bracknell Guard and Security Guard….

Bracknell Guard sees my proffered money and listens to my request to purchase the extra stop ticket and says, “OK. No problem. You need to see my colleague here.” and points to Security Guard.

Security Guard takes me to one side, away from the exit barriers – I assume he does this so that I don’t try to vault them to escape. Bearing in mind that I’m suited and booted with the obligatory briefcase with heavy laptop, I’m hardly likely to.

So just to reiterate – I approached them to pay for the ticket that I knew I had to buy to cover my journey, I wasn’t running away and got nabbed….

“Do you know that it is illegal to travel on South West Trains without a valid ticket to cover your journey?”, says Security Guard and looking at someone (which, I realise, actually appears to be me) as if I am unsavoury and trying to dodge paying.

“And do you know that if you don’t have the obligatory ticket you are liable to a fine of a minimum of £20 plus the cost of the ticket?”

Well I do know this, so I say simply “Yes”.

“So why didn’t you buy a ticket  at Waterloo?”, he continues.

“I didn’t think it was necessary”. Which is true. Having had this happen a couple of times before over the last couple of years this had never been requested of me and so never even entered my mind.

“And why didn’t you approach the guard on the train? I was on the same train for the last few stops and so I know the guard came down the train, you have no excuses. Do you?”

At thsi point I need to give you a visual picture of Security Guard Have, you’ve seen Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds?

Well Security Guard had definitely seen it!

Currently modelling himself on Christoph Waltz who played  Col. Hans Landa! (however Security Guard was about 6ft 2″ – a tad taller than Christoph)

I paused. Why was I feeling so much like a criminal? I didn’t think that travelling one extra stop and then being honest and actually volunteering to pay was such an onerous crime. By all means point out that this isn’t how the system works. Then it’s clarified for me. But all these pointed question… isn’t that just a tad too over the top? A bit Monty Python Spanish Inquisition?

So, obviously, while I was getting progressively annoyed. I just apologised very meekly.

Then there was a long pause while he rubbed his chin with his hand, considering the penalty he is going to hand out and relishing this moment of ultimate power.

“Well. I should fine you because you were in contravention of the South West Travel regulations. However, on this occasion I will let you go.”

The money in my hands was raised and as I asked how much Security Guard started tapping his ticket machine while Bracknell Guard coughed, nodded to Security Guard who in turn said “OK.”

And Bracknell Guard ushers me through the turnstile FOC.

Why the charade of trying to make me look stupid, feel guilty and very small? security Guard could have taken the money, pointed out that I shouldn’t do this and what I should do in future and send me on my way.

Unbelievably bad customer service. The phrase ‘Jobs Worth’ takes on a whole new meaning when you experience it.

I’ll be driving into London next time I need to go.

And finally…

THE ANGRY

British Telecom (btopenzone.com)

Last week a client of mine that runs a large covered/open air market asked me if we could arrange to install a wi-fi network for their clients. We had two routes, 1) install a commercial system that we/the client maintained or 2) turn to BT and install a BT OpenZone option. We opted for the latter as it would be easier to install and easier to maintain.

Pleasantly surprised I pulled up BT OpenZone in my browser, saw immediately a link for PartnerZone and a list of service options. I clicked on the option we needed for my client and it’s all there, plus contact details. Superb. A simple to follow site, with everything I need and a way to get the ball rolling.

Email spins off into the ether and by return I get a response asking a few more questions. I duly respond and a response comes back smartly saying that they can now come back to me to arrange a site visit.

5 days later… still waiting. Client wondering what’s happening. So a quick call and I talk to a really helpful BT guy who says he’s surprised that I haven’t had a call. “Leave it with me”.

Another 2 days and nothing. Another call. Another helpful front-line BT response and then the real truth comes out.

“Well we handle customer enquiries on this but the next stage involves our ‘other’ department. But we can’t talk to them only send a request then they will call you.”

“OK, that’s fine”, I reply, “Give me their number and I’ll call them directly”

“But”, my friendly BT man continues, “I don’t have a number. I can’t call them and neither can you. They only make outgoing calls.”

I know – I couldn’t believe it either. 10 days now another call from me and another helpful BT man. But still no progress on BT PartnerZone and client becoming more irritable (with me not BT) every day.

So, that’s why it’s under the heading angry. Its’ like dealing with a schizophrenic company. One half is so helpful it’s not true. The other half doesn’t own an incoming phone line (yes in BT!) and portrays such an unhelpful customer facing appearance it’s hard to see how the two co-exist.

Suddenly installing a commercial system starts to seem much more attractive and will maintain our client relationship which BT are eroding daily.

So please..

If you are providing customer service (which basically we all are) learn from OneClick – they have it just right.

Nigerian Scam gets smarter gravitates to subscription services

The email Nigerian Scam which purports to send $m to ‘you’ has gravitated to subscription sites and I experienced it first hand.

We’ve all received, seen or heard of the emails that are from ‘a professional business person’ who used to work for ‘a minister/rich person/royal family member’ and have suddenly come into a lot of money that they need to wash and you are just the person to receive $8.5m of which you’ll be able to keep 10%. And all you have to do is send £300-500 to this address and we’ll be in touch….

Well, when I first received one of these… for that nano-second while I was working out 10%, my head wasn’t in gear. Then once it had moved on to nanosecond number two, the brain kicked in and reality said ‘Don’t be stupid!’ As much as you want to feel important nobody gives away anything so put brain and mind into gear and delete the email. Now the ‘Nigerian email scam’, as it became known, is spotted by spam engines and filtered out so the stupidity of the email and any reaction are removed.

However, it just elevated to a new level. And I saw it in action first hand.

As an agency we use various sites where we receive sales leads of companies wanting marketings services. Last week we purchased one of these leads, from a reputable on-line service. I responded to the lead and by return email, which in itself was a surprise and just a little bit too quick (normally responses don’t happen for at least a week while the client reads and evaluates) got a resposne and request for more information.

The email I received back said that to receive the detailed project specification in confidentiality I must register with the company’s lawyers and an email address was provided for contact .

Again, not the norm because on an open quoting site confidentiality is rare as the project has been posted for quotes for anybody to read. I checked out the email address and it was from a web site which looked legit and for arguments sake I’ll call them ‘online-solicitors.usa‘, because they themselves might have been scammed. So while two events had made me slightly interested, not suspicious just yet, I sent off an email asking what information was required.

Bingo

The next day I receive an email from ‘the lawyer’ saying: “Apologies I was out of the office. Best to contact me on my yahoo email address”.

That was concern number one. Why would a reputable lawyer apologise for a delay of 24 hours? Why would he want me to use his Yahoo address?

Concern number two followed shortly after, grammar and tying was… suspect and very reminiscent of the Nigerian Scam emails:

“Hello Mr …

I am a chief contract project lawyer for the {spoof company name was here} Bank Project

i shall be handling your registration Process.”

Concern number three “Bank Project”. Oh,  oh. A bank eh? Oh yeah?

Concern number three:

Tucked away in the middle of the information required were these two little gems:

“Bank Account Information including sort code :

Non- Refundable registration Fee of : 350 British Pounds.”

Oh yes the sucker punch line.

So after reporting them to the lead site as a ‘Nigerian Scam’ I did a bit of investigation.

The emails sent from ‘the client’ and ‘the lawyer’ were both sent on Yahoo. The IP addresses they were sent from were based on the same email server bank. And yes, these emails servers were based in Nigeria!

So after patting myself on the back and letting all the companies involved know I just had to pen this blog.

Please tweet, digg, facebook whatever you can. The more people that read about this the better.  Nigerian Scam emails are widespread and still catch out the on-line community that are ‘web unaware’, this application of the scam is not as well known. I’m sure I’m not the first to experience this but I would like to be the last!

You can read this and ‘like’ on my facebook page and retweet/follow on my twitter account @marlxkr