July 29, 2004 - The owner of the Abriendo Inn Bed and Breakfast wants to get the word out on yet another scam from Nigeria that could cost local businesses money.

Mark Chase said he's been in contact for the past few months with a group apparently from Nigeria that allegedly attempted to swindle several thousand dollars from the inn.

Chase said he didn't suffer any damages in the scam and turned over the correspondence with the group to his bank, which has alerted authorities.

"What they do is send you a fake money order for more than it costs to rent the rooms; then after you cash the money order, they tell you to send back the difference over Western Union, but Western Union only takes cash," Chase said. "So people cash the money order and then use their cash to reimburse the difference, but what a lot of people don't usually know is that it takes 7 to 10 days for the money order to clear."

When it becomes obvious the money order was bogus, the U.S. business person has to pay back the cash.

In Chase's case, the group booked five rooms at the inn and sent a bogus money order for the cost of those rooms. They later canceled a few rooms and asked for a refund.

Chase said most of the contact was through e-mail, though he said he did receive telephone calls from people asking where their refund was.

Chase said he didn't send the refund and was working with Vectra Bank to protect himself from the scam. He wanted to warn other businesses to be wary of the same tactics.

Southern Colorado has not been immune to Nigerian scams.

In May 2003, Southern Colorado businessmen lost an appeal to reinstate a lawsuit aimed at recovering $500,000 from the Nigerian government, the result of a scam that occurred in 1996.

In that scam, Nigerians said there was $21 million in an offshore bank account that they would share with Americans willing to put up an escrow account and settle claims with subcontractors and suppliers.

Last year, a San Luis Valley man was targeted when he tried to sell a truck on eBay and received a phony money order from Nigeria.

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