From Doubt to Detection: Empowering Companies to Recognize Email Red Flags
When Rebecca Quesnell, Chief Operations Officer/Research & Development Director at TransAgra International Inc., received an email from a representative of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (MAPA) looking for interested manufacturers and capable suppliers to the Ministry of Agriculture, she reached out to the U.S. Commercial Service (CS) in Des Moines, Iowa to request assistance with verifying the legitimacy of a request presumably from Brazil.
CS Des Moines reached out and worked with CS Belo Horizonte in Brazil to identify six red flags regarding the message received by TransAgra:
1. No mention was made of a government bid;
2. The individual requesting information had highly unusual three first names and the most common Brazilian last name;
3. The individual claimed to be with the University of Sao Paulo and unconventionally provided a Gmail e-mail account;
4. The phone number provided was an Ontario, Canada, phone number (although the two first numbers could also denote a phone number in Brasilia, Brazil;
5. The message received by TransAgra started with a salutation very commonly found in e-mail scams: “Good day;” and
6. Perhaps more crucially, CS Belo Horizonte repeatedly attempted to reach out to the individual requesting information from TransAgra to no avail.
Rebecca Quesnell was thankful for the strong recommendation to cease communication with the individual in question. This could have led to financial losses which could have been significant to a small, rural, woman and minority-owned Iowa company.
We are so grateful to you for your assistance on so many levels. This one, in particular, was a significant win for us in that I did not have to spend a great deal of time wasted on a fraudulent request. We are proud to be working with you on so many projects, and it is wonderful to have a trusted resource in internationally relevant situations like this. -Rebecca Quesnell, Chief Operations Officer/Research & Development Director at TransAgra International Inc.
To learn more about red flags and due diligence tools, please read “How to Avoid Scammers and Win at Exporting” or contact the Rural Export Center at rural@trade.gov to receive a Due Diligence Resource Guide. Also, contact your local CS office to learn about U.S. Commercial Service’s in-depth due diligence tools.
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