Scam Check from Nigeria
About two months ago I got an email from Akanji Fawaz from the company real heritage int’l nig ltd. I did some research and quickly found some very funny and odd listings from this “company” They list their company as buying gold jewelry, computer parts, and a variety of other things to resell. Funny part is that on 4 different sites I found 5 listings for real heritage int’l nig ltd all five listings had different dates for when the company was “founded” earliest dated back to 1991. Earliest posting was made in 2002… which really surprised me since this scam has been running that long and they haven’t been called out and there isn’t anything to find this company as a rip off online. Obviously they’ve been running off of various different company names this whole time.
Anyways, the email I got was weird from beginning to end. It was a reply to a PRWeb Press Release that I did for my handcrafted jewelry business. Which clearly stated that we had sterling silver, and copper jewelry but makes no mention of Gold jewelry. Mr. Fawaz Akanji emailed me asking if we had Gold jewelry… some what irritated I responded with a very brief message stating that we didn’t have any gold just sterling silver, and copper leaving him with my web address for my site (which was in the PRWeb Press Release as well). Akanji Fawaz emailed me back then asking what items I did have… I told him again that I have sterling silver, and copper jewelry and pointed out very bluntly that if he wanted to look at my catalog he could do so by visiting my website ArchmailleDesigns.com and look at the stock. Fawaz Akanji of real heritage int’l nig ltd emailed me back again saying that he would take 3 different items 25 pieces each…
That really is fine, it would take some work as I NEVER have 25 of each item made up but if real heritage int’l nig ltd and Akanji Fawaz was really interested I could spend the time to make the jewelry and send it off with 50% up front non-refundable. Since I was sort of hopeful, but still sure that it was most likely a scam. Akanji Fawaz wanted to pay up front with a check coming from real heritage int’l nig ltd of Nigeria even though I asked them to pay with PayPal if possible. I understand that PayPal doesn’t really let anyone from Nigeria sign up for an account… but if they bank in another country they still can.
I got the check recently which is so obviously a scam it’s not even funny. The “check” is printed by a specialty printing company that DOES NOT print checks (the web address is along the left hand side). The Routing number, and bank account number along the bottom are improperly formatted, and it is from a bank that only has branches in England. Not to mention it is printed on one side, the back is 100% blank, and there are no security features to speak of. Not to mention after doing much more searching I finally did find Akanji Fawaz email address onik2009@yahoo.com listed elsewhere online on scam report pages.
The 4,450 GBP which is equivelent to about 7,380 USD at today’s exchange rate would be nice… but it is too bad there are so many scams around because this rip off check isn’t going to any banks, it’s just getting posted up here for the world to see, and maybe become a little more educated. If I help only one person do the research to find a scam that’s good enough for me.
Things to search for if you suspect a scam:
- Persons name who sent you the email
- Companies related to this person (either in the email, or that you’ve found in the search results)
- Email address of sender
Don’t forget to put “scam” “rip off” and any other terms after the names to help your searching. example: Fawaz Akanji Scam Artist or real heritage int’l nig ltd scam
Searching for these in Google or Yahoo will help you to decipher whether the trade deal is legitimate or not. The results you find online should not be taken as the final word as to whether or not you have been scammed! Many scams have not yet been discovered and therefore you will not find the results of them.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Hi, thanks for the useful information. I receved a letter from the same company, orderein golden watches. Togehter there was a check similar to the one above, but from Barclays bank London, 5000 pounds. Of course it went immediately into the dustbin. Thanks very much again for sharing this info!