Wow ! I almost believed this, but I did what most of you did. I reverse checked all of the info & came up with nothing that matched. The e-mail is exacttly the same; word for word.
He is a complete fraud. This "Peter Cook" character places an order for flyers that need to deliver to South Africa. Then he asks you to quote freight through his preferred freight vendor. He will give you credit card numbers to pay in advance, and will request that you, the printer, pay the freight via wire transfer (since the freight company conveniently cannot accept credit cards). You produce the product, you pay for freight in advance via the wire transfer anf the frieght pick up is never made. "Cook" then calls the credit card company and has them refund the amount since the delivery of product was never made. So you lose out on the cost of producing the product and the amount of the wire transfer to the freight company. He almost got me, but luckily I had a discussion with my CFO - he made me aware of the scam.
He also goes by the name Bill Jones Inc. and is a crook. This time he wanted 50 banners and for me to pay the shipping cost of $3500.00 to Africa. The actual cost to ship should run only about$450.00, but he wasn't concerned with a lower shipping cost at all, just that he wanted to use HIS shipping company. He's a fraud!