I Uncovered a $250,000 Business Scam! 

I'm a lawyer and scammers are actively trying to scam me into refunding them money from a retainer sent to me in the form of a fake check. They are using similar techniques to the ones outlined in this video, but I am playing with the scammers using the tips I got from all the Pleasant Green videos. I'm going to post a link to this video on my website so my business clients can be aware that this really does happen. Thanks Pleasant Green. This is really helpful.

Scarry that even as someone like me that considers myself tech savvy could have fallen for this. Thank you for your service.

Just pray that pleasant green doesn't decide to become a scammer.

Small businesses are common targets of scams like this. Scammers don't care if they strip someone of their hard work and put them in the bankruptcy court.😠Glad you gave these guys what they deserve.

Native German speaker here. That document that he sent to stop the work has quite a few red flags, but is done surprisingly well otherwise. The German is more or less perfect and only uses a few weird words, that are semantically correct, but would not be used in such a context. Also, the Federal Office mentioned in that letter would not issue something like that because it's not in their jurisdiction. Plus they're definitely not in that city. And the stamp there says some random city, but has the Brandenburger Tor from Berlin used in it. In general, that letter is well made, by someone who clearly has some grasp of the German language. I'd say some Germans might also fall for it.

So many scams wouldn't work if banks could instantly verify if checks are good or not.

In my 26 year's of operating a Catering Business I got fleeced once out of $1,380. It was a Church Group where they stopped payment on a check because they said the Youth Pastor didn't have the authority to sign the check. The check came 9 days before they arrived and stop payment notification came the day after they left. Calling the Church several times only got apologies and promises for action. Action that never came. My policy was payment in full 14 day's before event so really I have to take the responsibility. It's a shame people will scam you but it's a reality. There were several times clients checks were returned as NSF and I remember not letting guest's into the banquet room until they paid balance due in cash. They always paid. First they had friends, family, and clients already arriving plus they didn't want to lose the 50% deposit they'd already paid.

Instead of a check, you should have asked for gift cards. Don’t you know this by now?

So funny! As an office manager for a couple Wells Fargo locations in Canada we constantly had invoices sent in from companies that we had never used. For things like office supplies, janitorial services, service or repairs to photo copiers, fax machine.. you name it. When the invoice would go unpaid we would get delinquent account notices and even threats of lawsuits. It was pretty funny. We knew immediately they were all scams. I always wondered how many would fall for something like that.

I always love getting a notification from Pleasant Green knowing that he has been wasting some more oxygen thief scammers time while giving them false hopes that they had their next victim on their phone. 🤡🤣😂💯

This is hilarious! I hope you submit this info to all authorities who can try to take down people like this. Thanks for keeping us aware!

This investigation was pretty intense, great job.

You should report this to the Canadian authorities

Thank you, Ben for keeping us aware that scammers are out to get our $$$. I had a guy call me and said a bunch of guys would be in our neighborhood to check people's roofs for free to look for damage from recent storms, which really weren't that bad. He wanted to know if he could schedule a time with me. I was suspicious right away, because he didn't say what business he was with and kept assuring me that it would only take 10 minutes and it was free. I was afraid he would find some bogus claims and want to charge me. My roof is 2 years old. I told him a flat out NO and hung up. If he was legit, he was going about it the wrong way! I think I dodged a bullet with that one!

I've got to admit, it's more clever than most for the amount asked for and the time wasted.

As a native German speaker I noticed many little spelling mistakes on the fake "ARBEITSAUFTRAG STOPPEN" document. In German we write all nouns with capitalized first letter, but the scammers wrote some of them in lower case, like: Bauunternehmen, Fertigstellung, des Projekts. They also didin't capitalize the name of the city Karlstadt on the top of their website. In cases like this, running it through a spell checker might give a first hint that there is something wrong.

As a native German speaker, that "official" document is filled with grammatical errors. No one who actually speaks German and reads this would think this is real (at least if they pay some attention).

I'm a self employed professional handyman. My jobs are much smaller than a quarter million. However, once in a while I receive requests from nice ladies who claim they just bought a new home in Edmonton (I live here) and would like it painted. The paint is pre ordered and if I accept a cheque for payment. The last time it turned out the cheque was supposed to cover the materials too and I was supposed to pay for something out of it. I knew it was fake, but they did a very detailed breakdown of the job, including exact dimensions of each room to be painted. The initial message definitely looked legit. Thanks for what you do. I learned a lot from your videos.

All I can say is no one should EVER return any check funds to someone UNTIL that check has cleared. I used to work at a bank and knew of customers who fell for similar scams, but thankfully not as expensive as what you’re describing in this video.

Jack Schitt, Many people are at a loss for a response when someone says "you don't know Jack Schitt". Now, You can handle the situation. Jack is the only son of Awe Schitt and O. Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, married O. Schitt, the owner of Knee-deep Schitt, Inc. In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt and the deeply religious couple produced 6 children: Holie Schitt, The twins; Deep Schitt and Dip Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Giva Schitt and Bull Schitt, a high school dropout. After being married for 15 years Jack and Noe divorced. Noe later married Mr. Sherlock and because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was known as Noe Schitt-Sherlock. Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt and they produced a cowardly son, Chicken Schitt. Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt were inseparable throughout childhood and consequently, married the Happens brothers in dual ceremony. The Schitt-Happens children are Dawg, Byrd and Horse. Bull Schitt the prodigal son, left home to tour the world. He recently returned with his new bride, Pisa Schitt. Now, when someone say's you don't know Jack Schitt, you can correct them. Dip schitt😀

My wife formed an LLC and within 2 weeks she got 5 scam mails. One was a large postcard with no return address offering to help set up a tax id number for a fee when that can be done free on the IRS web site. The others were for selling her corporate documents she already had in PDF format, labor law posters, and a supposedly mandatory business safety manual. We couldn't determine where the postcard was mailed from but the other 4 were mailed from Florida but 3 had return addresses in our state and one had an address in Washington DC. When we searched those 4 address and all were boxes in UPS Stores. The fact that all 4 were UPS Stores makes me wonder if they even care that their boxes are being used for scamming.

I'm from Toronto and knew right away that it was going to be a Nigerian involved. Scammers are getting slick in what they do.

Congrats on 1M Ben!! Well deserved! here's to 2M!!!!!!!!!

I didn't know how common business scams were until I became a manager. I would love to see more scambaiting content about business scams!

Curious - why do banks in the US allow the funds to be immediatly accessable before the checque is reconciled with the issuing bank. Here in Australia (where cheques are about to be abolished), if you deposit one, the funds stay as pending until after the cheque is reconciled with the issuing bank. Would quickly put out of bussiness a lot of checque scammers.

The sad thing is, unless they are stealing from other artists (which seems more likely), their logos and art are actually pretty decent! Maybe if they had used their art for more good than bad, they wouldn’t even need to try and scam people in the first place.

That was crazy! What bugged me was that they used Canada. So glad you out smarted them.

Shocking. Thank you for your due diligence in exposing this scam.

I appreciate how you used Comic Sans to write that successful transaction letter.

This scam hit a small business I worked at ages ago, and we completely reworked our assembly line structure to get their products made. By the time they realized it was a scam, we had a truckload of worthless custom products and had even bought machines and built tables. People had been working overtime, and stress was HIGH. At the small/midsize businesses that usually get targeted, it can ruin the quality of life for every employee.

And another wonderous scammer group left in the dust😂! @plesantgreen your are in the GOAT Hall of Fame... 🏆

Awesome video... these guys are getting sneaky. Someone tried to steal my 1964 Impala I was selling, by sending a deposit through Walmart money transfer, and he said he has a friend nearby that would pick up the car with a certified check(I’m sure fake), so of course I’d have to transfer the title, hence, my car would be gone. I was skeptical because I’ve never used a money transfer like that, and the guy was pretty persistent that I go to Walmart. Plus, we can’t just sign over a title where I am. I have to go to my dmv in person to do it. And they were closed for the weekend. Someone would’ve had themselves a really nice impala. Happy to say the impala later went to a good home.

How to absolutely destroy this scam tho just say "we dont do refunds unless the product was damaged and there is proof of damage"

About 15 years ago I worked for a store where people tried to do large mail orders with stolen credit card numbers.

A quick word to Guardio: Guardio isn't a general "browser extension", it's an exclusive "Google Chrome extension".

I once received a fake check with a really bad blurry letter detailing the scam. I knew right away what it was and took it to my bank, who couldn't care less. I then took it to the police who said there was nothing they could do. I then contacted an office of investigation at the Post Office who told me, "By the time we track the address, they will move on, so there is no point". And this from the one person in the country whose job it is to deal with mail fraud.

I hope its not only me but I always look forward to the 1 second of music every time he says "NIGERIA" lol

You’re my favorite RU-vidr to watch, and I just wanted let you know that I love your videos and pleaseeee keep making more of them! You never fail to grab my interest and make me laugh or very intrigued. Amazing videos overall! ❤

I always love hearing your musical cues for the different scammers country of origin. XD

It's amazing how you can track all this and still keep it straight. Love the vids. Keep up the good work.❤🏵

Thanks for all the detective work you do to expose scammers.

My sister is an artist and she had someone send her a cheque to pay for a painting worth about £1500. The cheque was for £15,000 and when she contacted the supposed buyer he blamed it on a mistake by his secretary and could she just send him £13,500? She told him that she'd just tear up the cheque instead of paying into her account and he could send her a new one for the correct amount at which point he got angry, perhaps trying to intimidate her or perhaps because his attempt to steal £13,500 had just failed.

What I don't understand is why can't banks detect fake checks ? Or if it needs a manual review, the balance should not get updated till it's cleared

Look at that check again! Check number in upper right corner matches the routing number on lower left. That should be an instant red flag that the check is fake.

No bank is going to allow a $250,000 check to clear in one day...

It’s a dang good weekend when when pleasant green uploads. Have a happy weekend y’all!

As a german I can tell you that this German Piece of Paper is full of errors

Business owner here, and man, I truly hate scammers. Scum of the earth. This sounds like an American/Canadian orchestrating this. Not the usual Nigerian, which is crazy. Had no clue this scam existed. Outstanding work man.

The only problem I have with this channel is there aren’t more video 😂

The best way to stop this dead in it's tracks is to demand cash payment upfront on ALL new accounts. Tell them until a business relationship is established, you can only accept cash. The days of check kiting are over. In my business I offer cash upfront and expect a discount as well. The upside is the sales reps, get paid immediately, no waiting on 30/60/90 for checks to clear. In return, when discounts and spiffs are offered, my phone rings first right after the morning sales meeting.

Have you ever heard about Indeed job scams?? The ones that email out their “cheques” for you to cash and buy from their vendor. People are truly getting really dumb. 🤦‍♀️

Yes!! Thank you for making a video about this. as a beginner freelance graphic designer, i get SUPER detailed and convincing messages all of the time. They will send quite literally every single detail a regular customer would give, but at the end they say that they aren’t available over the phone, or that they can only pay with a check. Even though i consider myself tech savvy, this stuff is tricky!

Why does every scammer say "kindly"

Wow I'm actually born and raised from Long Beach,CA. Moved away 4years back, but it always surprises me when my home town is randomly mentioned

What you should have done is send them back their fake check lol

Scary thing is, this scam must have worked (to the tune of $250k) at least once. I wonder if people have forgotten (or just never knew) how paper cheques actually work.

Back in the days when cheque's is all we had here in the UK, you could pay a fee and get the cheque cleared into your account strait away/ish.. instead of the standard four days Not sure about international thou

Wow - what a jumbled mess of scammers! Too bad for them that they ever got involved with someone like you who could put all the pieces together & know exactly what they were up to. Well done Ben! 👏👏 ❤

My son never had a wedding reception that he paid for 1 month before the event, many thousands of dollars. Covid hit & the reception hall shut down & never opened again & took everyone's money for the past several months. Ughhhhh, I hate that he was robbed out of the reception & the money.

I’ve been watching your channel for years, so I’m casually watching the video and as soon as you mentioned Vancouver I jumped since I’m not used to seeing my city pop up in scam videos.

I fell for something like this back in 2017. I was having a lot of personal issues and let myself get burned.

Has there ever been a time when the world got created, no one has ever scammed anyone? Geeez, theres all sorts of scams, its a shame that the internet is enhancing and helping these scammers. But great vid PG. Thanks for sharing this, Im sure many legit companies will be happy to watch and learn from this. 👍

I found this video very interesting. I run my own residential remodel business, and over the last few months I have been receiving text messages from out of state area codes. Every message is worded similarly. They want to hire me for a job. They send me the address, and all the details needed to provide an estimate saying that there is no need for me to go to the residence because they have provided all details. So I play along and give them an inflated estimate. Then they say they will mail me a 50% deposit check. I receive the checks, and they are actually for over 100% of the estimate. I have been wondering how this scam was supposed to work. They ask me to verify I received the check, I let them know that I have it has been deposited and that I will let them know when the funds have become available in my account. They wait a couple days then text for an update. I just string them along. I actually have a couple of these checks sitting next to me in my truck right now. Obviously I don’t try to deposit them because I know they won’t ever post to my account. It’s crazy though. They do look like legit checks, with water marks and other security features on them.

I did a quick search for that oil company and although it did appear in the search results, the actual site was nowhere to be found. Been taken down already!

Your a bloody legend at what you do. Keeping it real 2 thumbs up.

I was a woodworker for a custom reclaimed woodworking company much like this one. I can tell you that even major billion dollar companies holding up their payments for a week or two can make me not get paid for weeks. This kind of scam would've bankrupted us. Thank you for putting this info out there.

With an order approaching a quarter million dollars I think they can (and should) afford to fly to you to deal in person.

IBS Management, that's a winner. It reminds me of the time when I was in the hospital, and the nurse came in and asked, "did you move your bowels?" To which I replied, "I didn't touch a f*cking thing in here!" 😎 Another great one, Senor Dover. Cheers.

where there's a will, There's a way. unbelievable 😮😮😮

The lengths scammers go to is just mind-boggling. I hope they realize their efforts were all in vain

Hi Bendover how is Eileendover doing? it’s amazing the length these scammers will go to get ppl to part with their money putting the frighteners on them is good keep up the good work Ben

I'm glad that you weren't scammed. I have friends who are business owners and share this type of scam with many of us. I had a similar situation when I tried to sell my car on auto trader. They always started with "your car looks very interesting, want to send me a cheque etc even though my ad said cash only. they tried very hard saying it would be certified. I wasted a good week on these guys and I would end it with an email saying "who's the sucker now?" then block them.

Awesome job Pleasant Green!!

This scam dates back to early 2000's, One time I've scammed a scammer by having him sending me several checks claiming that he made mistakes in my name, it cost him $30 a check in UPS shipping back in 2004, He was fuming when I told him I scammed him.

Happened to me, we designed a website for birthday planners in us and they paid us via Bitcoin atleast i thought they did. Later they asked me to refund the money because they didn't get approval. That lady cried on phone and as soon as I paid 80% money back she blocked me. Later I realised I never received the Bitcoins. 😭

As a photographer, I get requests to photograph properties with my drone that are future construction projects over the course of many months. A big job worth many thousands of dollars. The customer is out of town or in the hospital and says he will send me a check for full payment plus extra that is to pay his “Project Manager.” I have learned that when a “too good to be true” job comes out of nowhere, it’s a scam.

Closest I've ever had to this is a vehicle wrapping place. They said I'd get paid $700/wk to just drive around with my vehicle wrapped with their logo. They said they'd send me my first week's pay along with the fee to pay for the wrap job in the form of a check. I just needed to deposit the check and use part of it to pay the wrapping place. Yeahhhh. That check would have bounced after I cashed it and paid them in cash. Then I'm out that money PLUS the NSF fee for the bounced check. F-ckers.

The level of detail of this investigation is CIA/FBI level! Good job!

As a medical field specialist I know very well what IBS mean😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Once again, you've outdone yourself! This level of investigation makes me wonder why you aren't a detective with law enforcement. Seriously, you are AMAZING. Thanks for all your work - and I'm sure your viewers don't know the half of what you put into uncovering these scams.

YAY YOU'RE BACK! I get worried when you haven't been posting videos

This has to be one of the weirdest and most elaborate scams I've ever seen.

I don't get it; how does this scam even work?

I am VERY glad you have skills to chase these rats down huge rabbitholes!! There's no way to measure how grateful, lucky and blessed we are, add to it, you always make me giggle!! Happy 4th of July, thanks for everything you do! ❤❤Jil ❤❤

Manager at my last job was had for $2k in gift cards on the company card. She didn’t realize it until the person who the scammer was impersonating (upper management in a different country who had never contacted her before) was contacted. We got a company wide email About the dangers of phishing and that our data had been compromised. The scammers sent her a text and she and her best friend was so easily deceived that when she came in she rushed right back out on “urgent business”. It was around the holidays.

I got a fake check it told me to send money then to deposit the check well I didn’t do it cause it didn’t make sense 😂😂 I called the scammer n told him off 😂

My niece worked for a company selling electronics wholesale. They received and order for 33 large flatscreen tv's ( this was when the product was still new and expensive). It was paid for by credit card and the product delivered. A week later, the credit card company reported that the card was a stolen one and reversed payment.. not a scam, but a large loss to a company that could not afford it.

I have ibs so I find this one even more hilarious

Some dude on discord tryed to use a "accidentally reported" me on steam But because of this channel I was immediately suspicious of it After some looking around its a kinda old scam Im glad ive watched pleasant green

I did learn something! You bring us new scan information and you work hard at it. Your skills are impressive as always; you don't quit until you get to the bottom of the scam. I was ready for the Nigerian jingle and you didn't disappoint.😊

Thank you for what you do, I love watching you waste these people's time 😂 I would love to see another cash pickup video!

Kenyan here. First of all thank you for this informative video. Second just a minor correction the pin on your map 12:28 was not on Kenya it was on Sudan instead (Understandable mistake). Third the guy in Kenya (Joseph Evi-Parker) is probably also a Nigerian. They operate a huge scam ring in an area called Roysambu and I have been trying to expose them. They recently scammed my best friend and sadly she ended up unaliving herself due to the financial and emotional turmoil 😞 Thank you for the work you are doing 👏🏼

Hi Ben Dover :)

PROPHECY TRACE love that you do this. Protecting our elders and other vulnerable populations.

I wanted to try this Guardio for 7 days. Well - before the starting of the trial they want the number of my credit card?!? You know - the kind of personal information you should never share in internet. Very suspicious. Looks like scam.

Yeah, large orders with a backstory attached. highly suspect. Great video though keep us informed

As always, amazing video! Thank you for what you do! You both entertain us and make these scammers think twice about what they're doing. ❤ Humans can be so disgusting. Ugh. Why not use all of this energy to do something legal/positive? That's too hard and too much like right, I guess.

Job scams have done this twice. Sent me overnight checks. The first time I was young and almost fell for it. Thank goodness I called me bff and told her about. Called the bank in time to cancel it. The second it happened l caught on immediately. And the check didn’t have my full name and it was printed crooked. Just dumb.

Really out here saving lives.

It’s always gratifying to see the scammers when they know they’ve been had, but this one was magnificent. I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall when they opened that email.