Description of Potential Fraud:

fraud-warning

An Ontario firm notified us that they received an email from the purported Ray Richard Zoltan looking to retain them with regards to a breach of a business loan agreement.

This is a classic bad cheque scam that presents as legal matter requiring the assistance of a lawyer. In this scam lawyers will be duped into wiring real funds from their trust accounts after depositing a fake cheque received as payment from the debtor (who is part of the fraud). See our Confirmed Fraud Page for more of an explanation of how these frauds work and other names associated with it , and our Fraud Fact Sheet for a list the red flags of a bogus legal matter that is really a fraud.

Here is the initial contact email sent by the fraudster to the lawyer:

From: RAY RICHARD ZOLTAN [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: October-23-13 8:57 PM
To:
Subject: RE:BREACH OF CONTRACT ko

Dear counsel,

I am contacting you in regards to a breach of business loan agreement with a
client in your locality. I provided a loan to the company so that they can
meet up with their management and operational obligation . I provided the
company with an emergency loan of $508,910.00 with a term of 24 months and
fixed interest rate of 6.0%. The repayment period has since elapsed but the
company has been unable to finalize the repayment of the loan and have only
paid
$85,000.00 till date. Let me know if this falls under the scope of your
practice so that I can provide you with more information on this matter.if
not kindly refer me.and get back to me through my personal email address
[email protected]

Best Regards

Ray Richard Zoltan.

How to handle a real or suspected fraud

If you have been targeted by any of these frauds, please forward any of the emails and supporting documents that you have received to [email protected].

If you suspect you are acting on a matter that might be a fraud, call LAWPRO at 1-800-410-1013 (416-598-5899). We will talk you through the common fraud scenarios we are seeing and help you spot red flags that may indicate you are being duped. This will help you ask appropriate questions of your client to determine if the matter is legitimate or not. If the matter you are acting on turns out to be a fraud and there is a potential claim, we will work with you to prevent the fraud and minimize potential claims costs.

If you have been successfully duped, please immediately notify LAWPRO as there may be a claim against you.

For more immediate updates on fraud and claims prevention, subscribe to the email or RSS feed updates from LAWPRO’s AvoidAClaim blog.

Fraud Fact Sheet More fraud prevention information and resources are available on the practicePRO Fraud page, including the Fraud Fact Sheet, a handy reference for lawyers and law firm staff that describes the common frauds and the red flags that can help identify them.