http://www.north-westltd.com

[databene]

Hello,
We saw a scooter to buy on a website and contacted the woman who was selling it. She told us the scooter would be shipped by a company called 'Capital Couriers' then we received shipping informations telling the scooter was in transit to France. We had no phone number, only the email of the woman (dr.adrianeseaman@yahoo.com) and an address in London (health street). We had to pay by Western Union and today, a few days later, no news from anybody
I'm afraid it was a fraud, could you tell me your feeling about this ? We lost 1400€ and what would be our recourse in justice ?
Thanks a lot and sorry for that bad English.

[lightfair]

Hello databene;

unfortunately this was indeed a fraud. You've fallen victim to scammers from (mosty likely) Romania.
First thing is to contact Western Union to see if the money has been already claimed. If the money has not yet been cashed block the transfer immediately.
If the scammers already got the money there's not much you can do except going to the Police. While I don't have much hope that there will come much out of this it is very important that the authorities are aware of this type of crime (because if they don't know how widespread this scam is they surely are not going to do anything).

The scooter did not exist in the first place; the ad was very likely copied from an older (legit) ad. I'm saying this just in case you get contacted by this "company" again and get asked to send additional money. It's a fraud, plain and simple.

While this particular layout is not as widely used as many others (although a number of design elements are shared with other fake sites) I've found one previous incarnation:

http://escrow-fraud.com/images/sites/La ... rs.com.jpg