Warning over Champagne Scam

05 August 2011

Licensees in Northern Ireland are being targeted in new scam attempt.

Pubs are being warned about a fresh wave of e-mail scams involving orders for expensive champagne.

Fraudsters are believed to be targeting pubs and trying to buy large quantaties of expensive champagne using stolen credit cards.

The email has been sent from a number of different addresses, and in the instance of a Belfast pub, requested to buy:

• 24 bottles of Dom Perignon Champagne
• 18 bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne
• 6 bottles of Armand De Brignac (Ace of Spades) Brut

The rest of the e-mail went on to request:

Do confirm how soon you can have them ready as we need them for an event on August 13th . I'll wait to read from you with the total cost for the bottles . Do you accept MasterCard or Visa ? . Our Pickup men will come for the cases as soon as the Credit card goes through .

This has scam written all over it. One licensee e-mailed a quote and later got a call on an international number. When told the pub didn’t take credit cards he just hung up.

Pubs of Ulster urges members to be vigilent about suspicious e-mails.