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Got some mail from Canada today


dtel

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That looks a bit more professional than the typical Nigerian scam: no spelling mistakes, plausible amount of money (not $20M, for example), and they don't ask for a payment upfront.

However, the letterhead has something odd about it. 100 King Street West is in the heart of Toronto's financial district, an area that could be called Canada's Wall Street. That building, First Canadian Place, is a prestige address with mostly legal and financial firms as tenants.

The area code is wrong, though. Downtown Toronto uses 416, although there's also a newer area code. The number listed in the letterhead and at the bottom has a 905 area code, which is outside Toronto city limits and could be as far west as Hamilton (Steeltown) or as far east as Oshawa (Motor City). Suburban commuters are even sometimes referred to as "905ers".

It's possible they're using a central postal address to give themselves some credibility, but their working office is somewhere out of town, where they hope to be harder to find.

UPDATE: Just checked the number on Reverse Lookup and got this:

(905) 462-5688 is a cell phone based in Milton, On, ON
The registered service provider is Fido Solutions**.
Detailed listing information is not available.

Milton is a small town about 40 minutes drive west of Toronto. Running an office without a landline, just a cellphone, looks pretty suspicious.

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Interesting scam.

Tommyboy's GF got a check from a scammers who presented themselves as awarding scholarships.

I'm not exactly clear on happened, but I wondered if the scammers used the returned check, which would bear the account info of the person who deposited the check. Then they could drain the account of funds.

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We had something like this come to our house about a month ago. Our check was for 5,770 bucks. It was a bank of america check; so we took it up to them. They looked into it, and turned it into their fraud department. We never heard anything back from them about it ...............

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You've got to watch those wily Canadians, they are always coming up with new schemes to fleece their fun-loving, trusting neighbors to the South.

But I'm from Upstate New York originally and have been dealing with those hucksters, grafters and hosers since I was a we'un. Sure at first they got me a couple of times ("hey bub want to buy the Peace Bridge") but I soon figured them out. Now when I get anything from Canada I just put on my curling cap, sit back and have a Lablatt's.

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The 905 area code is the area surrounding the city of Toronto. It is not a number from downtown Toronto where the First Canadian Place is located. They need to do a bit more work to make sure the phone number matches the address. It should start with 416 or 647 (too many phones, faxes, cells, so they needed another area code).

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