Commercial debt collection scam by Zhidan Tang of Brone Electric Co.
Date First Reported: April 2013
Primary Name Associated: Zhidan Tang
Description of Potential Fraud:
Eight lawyers in the U.S. have notified us that they have received an email from the purported Zhidan Tang of Brone Electric Co with regards to a commercial debt litigation 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: Brone Electric Co Ltd [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2013 11:39 PM
To:
Subject: Legal Counsel
Good day Sir/Madame,
I am contacting you regarding a collection issue, please can you help? I will be glad if you can help
me with this issue or if you can give me a referral. Await your response.
Zhidan Tang
Senior Executive Manager,
Brone Electric Co., Ltd
644, Kita-machi, Imadegawa-agaru,
Onmae-dori, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto 602-8392
EMAIL: [email protected]
The following two documents were received from the fraudster:
BRONE ELECTRONICS DOCUMENT MA ——BRONE
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.
April 17, 2013 at 11:00 pm, Thad Vandyke said:
Having read this I believed it was very informative. I appreciate you taking the time and energy to put this informative article together. I once again find myself personally spending way too much time both reading and commenting. But so what, it was still worth it!
April 18, 2013 at 1:34 pm, Peter Pfund said:
I was contacted via e mail by someone using the name Zhidan Tang of Brone Electric Co., Ltd. he provided documentation of an unpaid sale transaction to Value Electrical Construction which appeared to be in order. Brone had a free e mail and no web site of its own. I ran the name Brone electric company Ltd. and found your blog. I reported them to the ic3 dept of the FBI. I caught on early thanks to your site. I was never retained and never did any work. Thanks for your help
April 23, 2013 at 7:40 pm, Mr. Kurt Sutheimer JD MBA BSEE said:
I was also contacted by Tang-san. I did some background checking on the alleged debtor in the Madison, Wi area and the dollar amount of the potential claim seemed excessive. I then “googled” Brone and ended up at this site. I will be responding back to him with text from this site and ask him to confirm or deny. I don’t expect to get a response from him. Thanks for the site.
April 25, 2013 at 4:13 am, Vishwa Arya said:
After receiving an email from Brone, which I suspected, I googled Brone and arrived at your web site. I am glad that you have up dated your site and have saved many from being duped.
Keep the good work up!