Date First Reported: June 2013

Primary Name Associated: Daiki Izawa

Description of Potential Fraud:

fraud-warning

[updated July 2013]

Twenty California lawyers notified us that they received an email from the purported Daiki Izawa of Japan General Appliance with regards to a commercial debt collection scam. For examples of other names attached to this kind of fraud see our Confirmed Fraud Page. For an explanation of how this fraud works see our Fraud Fact Sheet.

Here is the initial email:

From: Daiki Izawa
Date: June 13, 2013, 8:39:29 PM PDT
To:
Subject: Legal Represent
We are Japan General Appliance Co., Ltd and We would like to know if you have conflict that will prevent you from representing us against an entity in your jurisdiction.

This matter regards shipment and product’s standard. We have explore all avenues to resolve this issue amicably, unfortunately we have not progressed as expected.
If you require the name of the opposing party to conduct your conflict check, please respond to our inquiry and we are ready to pay your retainer fee immediately.

Yours Sincerely,

Daiki Izawa CEO/CFO
Japan General Appliance Co.,Ltd.
11th Fl., TT-1 Bldg. 14-8, Nihonbashi
Ningyo-cho 1-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
ZIP 103-0013
TEL: 03-5643-1331
Email;[email protected]
www.jgap.co.jp

A lawyer who replied got this response:

Thanks for the update below is the default customer information, please run a conflict check and advise us on your retainer fee also send us your retainer agreement. The outstanding debt is $650,000.00USD

Adverse Party

Howard Appliances
25415 Crenshaw Boulevard
Torrance, CA 90505-6122

Yours Sincerely,

Daiki Izawa CEO/CFO
Japan General Appliance Co.,Ltd.
11th Fl., TT-1 Bldg. 14-8, Nihonbashi
Ningyo-cho 1-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
ZIP 103-0013
TEL: 03-5643-1331
Email;[email protected]
www.jgap.co.jp

And then this email:

We have notify our debtor that we are taking legal action against them for not paying us our money since we deliver our product to them and we also advise them that we have communicate with your firm for legal representation in this matter and we are delighted to inform you that we received a message from our customer (DEBTOR) company today they have issued a part payment of $450,000.00 to your firm as a part money owed to our company.

Debtor is now scared of litigation, All effort to try and collect our money as not been successful and they have not respond to previous demand letter.

Its great opportunity to collect our money from them so please accept the payment and deduct your fee from the payment, notify us once you have receive and deposit the payment in your account, we shall forward you our account information for you to wire transfer us the proceed.

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.

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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.