John Sinnott, managing director of Bellingham, South London-based MTA Digital, told PrintWeek he was contacted via email by a "Paul Fisher", purporting to be from St James's Church in Piccadilly in the centre of London, asking to quote for 100 banners.
Fisher approved the price quoted by Sinnott and asked him to get a shipping quote to send the banners to Haiti, also recommending a particular shipping company that he said had worked for him before.
Additionally, he sent artwork for the banners across to Sinnott featuring the bible verse “give, and it shall be given unto you”.
A quote was received from "Kevin Cerullo" at the supposed shipping company, GoldCoast Shipping & Logistics. The working email address used by Cerullo spelt the word ‘shipping’ incorrectly.
The quote was approved by Fisher and the shipping company then said it required payment before collection.
Sinnott was also asking for payment in advance from Fisher and issued a pro forma requesting bank details for payment but Fisher asked to pay by credit card and sent Fisher an email authorising him to take a credit card payment for the full amount – including the printing of the banners and shipping costs – of £4,540.60.
When Sinnott attempted to call Fisher at St James's Church to confirm that payment could be authorised, the church said there was nobody there going by the name "Paul Fisher" and that Sinnott was the third printer to get in touch asking for Fisher that week.
All contact between Sinnott and Fisher/Cerullo was via email. The contact number supplied by Fisher was unrecognised when PrintWeek attempted to call it and, at the time of writing, neither Fisher or Cerullo had responded to email requests for comment.
When PrintWeek contacted the church, a spokesperson said: “There is somebody calling themselves Paul Fisher but he’s nothing to do with us. I have received six phonecalls in the last two weeks from printers asking to speak to him. One said alarm bells started to ring when they were told to pre-pay the shipping company before processing his credit card.
“I hope nobody has gone ahead and printed the job without pre-payment. Goodness knows how many printers have been approached but I’ve had calls from Bradford, Manchester, London and Southampton.”
Sinnott said: “The scam I believe was the payment to the shipping company. Never mind the effort that [would have] been made to produce the work. I am not sure if I could have used the credit card details the person gave me, I never tried. But he’s persevering, and he contacted me again yesterday to ask if I’d taken the money off his card yet.
“We do deal with religious organisations so there was nothing unusual about that, but the main red flag was when I asked for a BACS payment and he instead sent his credit card details.
“I thought that was a lot of money to put on a credit card so rang to see if he did have authority to do it because, even if I did get the money, I’d have to return it to the credit card company at some point if it was fraudulent.”
Have you been targeted by a similar sounding scam? Contact PrintWeek on 020 7501 6681.
