Watch out for mass bookings scam

A quick-thinking licensee has avoided being ripped-off and wants to warn others about a potential scam.

Sunnil Panjabi, of the Punch Tavern in London's Fleet Street, became suspicious when he was contacted by a customer wanting to book dinner for 15 people for three nights on the trot.

After a bit of internet research Sunnil discovered he was likely to be the victim of a scam where the customer initially overpays for the booking using a credit card and then asks for the balance to be transferred back.

The pub is left short of cash because the initial booking is made on a fraudulent card.

People using various aliases and fake addresses have tried to pull off the con, in the Punch Tavern case the company name Welfare Intech Oil United Kingdom was used in the booking process.

Sunnil said: "We all work so hard, the last thing we need is people wasting our time or preying on our gullibility."

Dave Pocock, the pub's marketing manager, added: "It pays to look at anything strange about an email. Such as company names that don't seem right, poor grammar, a company owner organising a function as opposed to his PA, large sums of money, early transfers via email.

"All these things seem too good to be true and they generally are. This is where the internet becomes our friend, in two seconds we had info about this con artist just by Googleing the company name."

A spokseman for the Federation of Small Businesses described the scam as "outrageous".

He said: "Our advice to publicans would be do not let customers dictate terms to them and have a clear policy when it comes to reservations. As a general rule if someone sends an unsolicited email offering money - ignore it."

The Publican was unable to contact Welfare Intech Oil United Kingdom using a telephone number supplied by the company.

For more information about the scam click on the link on the right.