Meetings Industry Scams

Reported: June 2020

Suspected fraudulent customer using

Email: akitasteelcoltd@outlook.com
Phone: +05058068592

Event: Our company require your service

Message: Our company require your service, Email me for more details. Thanks President Yutaka Iwasaki Akita Steel Co. Ltd 4-30 Niiyatoyomachi, Akita City, Akita Prefecture 010-1612, Japan Tel : +815058068592

Last reported: June 2019

A “client” using the name Kazuhiko Masayoshi with email address kmsacjp@outlook.com has used the CAPS speaker directory contact form to contact several speakers (the contact form generates an email to the speaker).

eSpeakers has reached out to the email address for confirmation, but at this point it smells like a scam to us as we recommend not pursuing the “lead”.

last reported: October 2018

email comes from: johnson.coulibaly@yahoo.com

text of email or job lead:

How are you today Sir? I just came back from your country where I attended on behalf of my bank a Seminar which was co-hosted with China Construction Bank. I want to thank you however for contacting me here as requested, and my sincere apology if the contents of this message doesn’t meet your personal quirks. Please the reason I contacted you is about one of our deceased customers who I presumed to be your relative because of the similarities in your last names and most importantly because he was also from your country who happened to be one of the high profile personalities I have worked with while he was an investor with our bank because in 2003 he came to our bank to engage in business discussions with a financial portfolio of £20.7 million which he wished to have us turn over (invest) on his behalf. I was the officer assigned to his case. We turned the money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our first years of operation. In mid 2005, he asked that the money be liquidated for onward transfer because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring cash payments. I undertook all the processes and have the fund liquidated, and that was the last time we heard from him. I did everything humanly possible to track him down all to no avail, and since he listed no next of kin in his bio-data form I have no one to contact. It was few years after his surprise disappearance that I stumbled upon the Venezuela plane crash manifest where I discovered he actually died in the aforementioned plane crash on the Tuesday, 16th of August 2005.

There is £20.7 Million plus the accrued interest abandoned in our bank all these years and now my worst night-mare is about to happen as the bank want to revert the funds back into our treasury as unclaimed and abandoned monies inline with our bank policy. What need to be done now is for me to insert your name from our system into his file as the heir and successor to the portfolio, and once that is done the money automatically become yours, after-which I will guide you with information(s) and furnish you with documents to prove your right to the funds, and have the funds release to you as the rightful and legal heir for us to share equally.

Please understand that I am basically aware it is not easy to trust anyone these days with scam, hoax, spam, ID thieves and hackers all over the net but please if you are someone with some level of sensitivity, wisdom and intelligence I expect you to see beyond the above listed elements and envisage a fortuitous prospect in this divine blessing. I am a family man and this is an opportunity to provide them with new opportunities. There is a reward for this project and it is a task well worth undertaking. I have evaluated the risks and the only risk I have here is from you refusing to work with me and alerting my bank or mistake this proposal for a scam or hoax otherwise wealth is just around the corner for you and I to grab. Remain bless as I await your response.

Thank You

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Johnson Coulibaly
Managing Director & Financial Controller
Private/Investment Banking Division
BGFI Bank Côte d’Ivoire
Immeuble *AMCI* 15ème et 16ème étage
01 BP 11563 Abidjan 01
Plateau, Avenue Joseph Anoman
Abidjan Cote D’Ivoire
Telephone:  00 225 84 68 12 86
Facsimile: 00 225 20 32 62 92

last reported: April 2017

False lead being presented to speakers from: Mikio Kinoshita @ Canox Corporation

Buyer posting full-time employment positions at this company as leads for speakers.

last reported: April 2017

Buyer requests you to be a guest speaker at this years Royal College of Physicians SEMINAR 2017. They say they will pay your flight ticket and pay your hotel accommodations. Speaking fee is said to be $5,000, $3,000 of it to be paid as soon as you procure all relevant travel documents. You are advised by the event organizing committee to immediately contact the British Embassy to procure your UK work permit as soon as possible.

last reported: May 2016

The buyer books a speaker for a date, then cancels the booking at the last minute and says “can you do an interview for me instead?” Interview is not paid and speaker has lost a date on their calendar because of the late cancellation.

last reported: 2015

You receive an email from a member of a Nigerian family with wealth. It is a desperate cry for help in getting a very large sum of money out of the country. A common variation is a woman in Africa who claimed that her husband had died and wants to pay you a large amount of money to speak at his funeral.