SPAM is un-wanted e-mail. It's e-mail that you receive but
don't want. It usually offers to sell you some product or
service that you don't really want or need. The Internet
is "big business" and as such, there is a constant effort to collect
lists of people's e-mail addresses, and to send literally millions of
unsolicited e-mails every day to any and all people on the list
whether they may want the item being sold or not. Usually
e-mail addresses are "harvested" off of any existing Internet web
pages by computer driven "robots" - 24 hours a day. There
is no way to effectively keep them out of a website.
SPAM is illegal - but there is no authority effectively policing
this problem. It's the "junk mail" of the Internet.
Your e-mail address (the one that was entered by you when you
originally listed your Business For Sale), is specially coded into
the
BusinessSellCanada
website so that it can only be read by humans and is not easily readable
by "harvesting" robots - so that it can't automatically become part
of someone's mailing list as a result of you entering a Listing on
our site.
Please note however, that this protection does
not apply to anywhere else that you might have entered your e-mail
address (or phone number, or FAX number) into a regular text part
of your listing. Those "text" entries are open to being
scanned and picked up by computer robots and can result in you
receiving undesired SPAM e-mails. While an exposed e-mail
address like this shows a friendly openness for the benefit of the
prospective business purchaser - it does have it's disadvantages.
If you want to keep your existing e-mail address relatively free
from SPAM - now and in the future - then you will need to open a
new alternate e-mail address - specifically for the duration of
this listing - at one of the "free" e-mail providers such as
Outlook.com,
or
Google gmail. Use this
new e-mail address as the only one that is shown to the public on
your For Sale listing .... But Please .... Remember to check this
alternate e-mail account EVERY DAY for the duration of your listing.
Avoiding SPAM will do you no good - if you also end up missing
legitimate purchasers by not checking this email address regularly
- or by having an inoperative mailbox because it's "Full".
Just to be sure, you should regularly send yourself an e-mail from
your own Listing on
BusinessSellCanada to this new
e-mail address every few days just to make sure that everything's
working OK with it.
You should also be aware, that if you "Reply" to an e-mail from
a prospective purchaser using your usual e-mail application,
he will then be able to see your own regular e-mail address -
(and if he's unscrupulous), use it to send you "spam" in the
future.
A SCAM is a fraudulent attempt to steal money from you or to trick you
into giving your money to an individual who doesn't deserve it.
In this case, most "scam artists" (also called "con artists") appear as
legitimate purchasers
interested in buying your company. They usually seem to be very
keen to buy your business and want to pay you top dollar - sometimes
even to "pay up front" - sight unseen. Usually however, they
have some "small" reason why this won't be a normal transaction ....
Like: they want to deposit the money directly into
your bank account, they want FAX/photo copies of your
ID (with your signature), their money is currently tied up - so
you'll have to help and pay off a "small" fee to release it, or
they're trying to keep this transaction "secret" from somebody else
- so you'll have to just play along. There are many and
varied schemes - but they can all be SCAMS.
The latest scams seem to focus on sending you a cheque for a larger
amount than you are asking for, and then requesting that you 'refund'
the difference. The excuses for the larger cheque are: - He
can only take money out of his bank in certain increments ... - He
needs to show that he paid a certain amount for immigration purposes,
but you are to refund the extra.... - Someone in Canada owes him a
larger amount and he's going to have them send you that cheque and
you're to send the difference to another of his family/associates.
There is very little that we can do here at
BusinessSellCanada
about these people - except to warn you to be cautious.
These SCAMS are perpetrated by real live individuals located
usually in Third World countries and using false names, temporary
e-mail addresses and cell phones. They pose as legitimate
purchasers - and as such they have e-mail access to you
through your own listing information. Most of the
"prevention" responsibility rests with you - your knowledge
and your wisdom. After they have your money, they can
just throw away the cell phone and disappear. They live
in countries where obedience to the law and law enforcement are
very lax.
Be CAUTIOUS !! If an offer looks too good to be true
- or hints of illegal dealings - such as avoiding taxes or Third
World dictators - it is probably a
"SCAM". If you
are unsure, then deal with the situation cautiously and slowly,
and involve others in the process such as your accountant, your
lawyer, your bank manager, etc. These people can tell you
how to safely transfer funds from other countries. Do not
accept 'overpayments' for your business, where you will have to
'refund' the difference. Anyone who suggests this
'overpayment' (too large a cheque) technique is definitely a SCAM.
Don't forget that - these SCAMsters are not restricted by the nice
safe laws and legal system that we enjoy here in Canada.
Don't expect to go to your local police afterwards and lay a
charge of "Fraud" against some individual who only said that he
was from Nigeria - and for whom you have only a fake name and a
"now inoperative" e-mail address !!!
Remember, you don't need
to give out your personal ID or any documents about yourself to
someone who says that he wants to PAY money TO YOU - but - he may
need such things to steal money FROM YOU out of your own bank
account. If necessary, open a new separate bank account
for any money transactions that seem to be dubious.
Check with your local bank manager.
If you believe that someone might be legit, and want to continue to
deal with him - then ask him for his full name and the City and
Country that he lives in. Then invest the time and the small
cost to call Telephone Directory Assistance in that country and get
a real phone number for him and then you can call it and see who
answers. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a whole lot
better than him simply giving you his cell phone number (world wide
satellite phone) and you relying on him being who he says he is.
Almost all email correspondence from us ends with our
"tag line" signature.
Mike Merritt (-name-@businesssellcanada.com)
--- Business Sell Canada ---
Classified Ads of Businesses For Sale in Canada
Buy a Profitable Business - Sell your Own Business
--- https://www.BusinessSellCanada.com ---
If you don't see these signature lines, regardless of how
real and authentic the email looks to be, then the email
is probably not legitimate and not from us.
If you are in doubt, then go to our Web Site (this website)
https://www.BusinessSellCanada.com.
Click on the
"Contact Us" tab at the top of any
page and send us an e-mail from the E-mail form that
you'll find there - or- you can telephone us.
The phone number of our office in Havelock, Ontario
is also on this
"Contact Us" page. If
there's no one in the office at the current time,
then leave a message on our answering service, and
we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
We do not ask you to email passwords, user name, banking
or credit card information to us. Please be very careful
making on-line payments. We use
"PayPal"
to clear Credit Card payments for us. The URL
showing in the Address bar at the top of your Browser
must say: "http
s://www.paypal.com" -
Note the "S" in the http
S: part of the URL
(not just the usual "http://" that you usually see) -
This is important ! It means that it's
a "secure" site and your data is specially encrypted
during transmission.
|
Who is this "SCAM" man .... ? |
This is a BAD man, a con artist, a scammer. He lives in some
third world country, and as a living, he writes emails to people
in more affluent countries and tries to con them out of their ID
so that he can steal money from their bank account. -OR- He
tries to gain their trust so that they send him money for some
"perfectly good reason" - which is a lie; or for some deceitful
reason which a greedy person sees as not being quite illegal enough
to be ashamed of.
He keeps his own actual identity well hidden - all anyone ever has on him
is an email address and a cell phone number. Both of these
are very temporary things that he'll just throw away once he
"scores" some money. He lives in a country where there is
little respect for the law and it is not enforced -or- it is filled
with corruption.
He often adopts the identity and address for a real (famous) person
such as a head of business, or someone currently in the news.
That way, if you research the name / address - you'll find it is a
real person - but its really not his true identity.
Would you believe that (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau at Sussex Drive,
Ottawa wants to buy your Dry Cleaning business in New Brunswick ??
He works by trying to gain your confidence (or by your own greed)
to want to sell your business for "Cash". He sends you his
ID and a copy of his Passport to prove that he's "real" (it's
a forgery), then asks you for your full name, bank info, and a
copy of your Driver's Licence in return to prove that you're
honest. If he get's these ---- he does a "wire transfer"
of money FROM your Bank to some temporary account of his in a
third world country - where he withdraws it as Cash and then
throws away his email address and his cell phone. If
your Bank objects before the transfer, he responds with full address,
name, etc. for you, and will even send them the copy of your
driver's licence to "prove" that it's really you and that you
are "
caught in Bulgaria and have to have cash from your account
to post a $20,000 bond to get out of prison" ... or some other
such plausible and desperate story.
There are different variations to the scam, but most work along
as either Identity Theft - or as him overpaying and you sending
him back a cash refund (of his overpayment) - which in the end
proves to be a fraud.
So, in the future -
Be cautious ! Nobody's going to buy your
business for cash up front without them actually standing there
in front of you and shaking your hand. And if the sale's
that clean and that easy and that fast, I can assure you that
it'll be for a lot less than the amount of your current asking price.
:-(
Your best course of action from these people is to just ignore their
emails and throw them in the trash.
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