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$400,000 lost to overseas scammers in what should by now be a well-known modus operandi to American attorneys.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings has reportedly fallen victim to a sophisticated debt collection scam, to the tune of more than $400,000.

The Nashville Post...reports that the law firm wired more than $400,000 to the foreign bank account of a scammer posing as a client. Lawyers at the firm believed the funds were covered by a check it had deposited—a check that turned out to be phony.

Read the article to learn more about the precise method by which the scam operated. No email communication was mentioned, but entirely consistent with similar scams we have described many times on this weblog.

Just the other day I received another invitation to dance:

Jinan Haohua Industry, Co. Ltd
153 Wardour Street. London.
W1F 8WN.
(+) +44 704 574 7799

Attention: Counsel,

We the management of Jinan Haohua Industry, Co. Ltd, require your legal representation for our North American Customers. Jinan Haohua Industry, Co. Ltd, a manufacturer and supplier of chemical, we are been owed payment on a shipment that we made to a customer in America in June 2008 and now seeking advice and possible representation in litigation against the non-paying company.

We are of the opinion that the ability to consolidate payments from North America will eradicate delays due to inter-continental monetary transaction between the UK and North America. We understand that a proper Attorney Client Retainer will provide the necessary authorization and we are most inclined to commence talks as soon as possible.

Your consideration of our request is highly anticipated and we look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Chang Ming Cheng,Managing Director.

Let's briefly review what's suspicious about this e-mail:

1) It arrived from a generic e-mail provider, not a company address: Chang Ming Cheng [chang_mngcheng@yahoo.co.uk].

2) My name, law firm and address are nowhere to be found. Clearly, an email blast. Scammers are lazy, looking for easy pickings. They will not spend the time and money focusing on a handful of suckers when 100,000 are out there.

3) E-mail properties display this information:

Received: from coal.daxa.net ([202.145.6.71]:52698) by jeep.websitewelcome.com with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256)

According to this page, that server (202.145.6.71) is in Jakarta, which received the email most likely from a server in Hong Kong or Singapore.

4) 153 Wardour Street in London does not exist! 151 is an office building and 155 is a storefront. A falafel restaurant!

I did all of this research in less than five minutes. I would have been happy to take 1/100 of Bradley Arants's alleged loss as payment for services rendered to them in doing due diligence on that purported client and not see them in the situation they're in now. In fact, attorneys must be able to perform this simple research either by themselves or through people who can, especially when the Internet is involved.

Forewarned and forearmed!