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The Cross’s of Co Limerick, which includes Anthony Cross and his two sons, Seamus and Michael, have had their identity hijacked by an allegedly fake tractor dealership based in the county.
Anthony’s farm, a mixed drystock farm in Ballyneety, Co Limerick, is registered with the Companies Registration Office as Sam Cross Farming Limited, the same name used by the allegedly fake tractor dealership exposed on RTÉ’s Liveline this week. However, apart from the name, there is no connection between the two.
Liveline became aware of the alleged scam when a woman from Lithuania phoned in to claim that the dealership had defrauded her out of €19,000.
They said they had no further contact from the company after they sent the money
Giedre, an expectant mother from Lithuania, said she and her husband recently decided to begin farming. For this purpose they rented some land and were looking to buy a tractor. They searched the internet and found a company called Sam Cross Farming Limited based in Limerick that was selling tractors for a good price.
“We got in contact with the company and they called us on several occasions before sending a formal invoice for a tractor worth €19,000,” she told Liveline presenter Joe Duffy.
The dealership allegedly instructed Giedre and her husband to send the money, which the couple had borrowed, to an account in TSB, Old Bawn, Tallaght, Dublin 24. However, Giedre told Duffy they had no further contact from the company after they sent the money.
Giedre said her bank in Lithuania has been on to TSB in Old Bawn telling it to hold the money, but she is not hopeful of ever seeing it again. As Duffy pointed out, the average annual income in Lithuania is €10,000.
Sam Cross Farming Limited
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal this week, Anthony Cross, 68, said that he began to receive calls around three weeks ago from people inquiring about tractors and other farm machinery.
“About two to three weeks ago we started to get phonecalls about machinery,” he said. “We had people from England and other countries enquiring about whether we sold tractors or not. We told them absolutely not. Sam Cross is just the name we have registered to our farm. Sam stands for me and my two sons, Seamus and Michael.”
Cross said he heard some of the Liveline interview and was very upset about the whole thing.
“We’re very upset about it,” he said. “The poor girl. To lose €19,000 is shocking.”
Photoshopped
Cross said he had also recently been contacted by someone from Farol Transport, a machinery dealership in the UK.
Cross did not say who he was contacted by, but Guy Champion, sales and marketing director of Farol Transport also rang Liveline this week, claiming that the Sam Cross website had photoshopped the Sam Cross logo onto images of buildings and machinery from Farol Transport’s website.
The man who answered the phone had a distinctive Eastern European accent
“It has all been photoshopped very effectively,” Champion told Duffy. He added that the website is being hosted in Russia and that he rang them up a few times to tell them they are frauds.
“The man who answered the phone had a distinctive Eastern European accent. He told me they are not frauds and put down the phone. I rang them up a few times after that just to annoy them, but they blocked my number.”
Cross said the person from Farol Transport rang him to say they are working with the fraud squad in the UK and they hope to get the website taken down.
“I would like to see it taken down,” said Cross. “That would be the best outcome for us”.
Facebook posts
The astuteness of the allegedly fraudulent dealership in hijacking the name of a legitimate company like Sam Cross Farming Limited is illustrated by comments in reply to a Facebook post written by BH Truck, a cargo and freight company based in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 4 March 2017.
In its post, BH Truck asked for advice on whether it should send money to Sam Cross Farming Limited in Limerick for two tractors it had seen on the Sam Cross website.
In the comments below the post, many people warn BH Truck off wiring money to any place in the world, while one person warns the company off Sam Cross specifically, saying: “Dude, you’re not the only one who fell for this story. They offer you a ride and everything, but no tractor.”
However, one or two commenters ran a check on the name and found the legitimate Sam Cross Farming Limited, the farm enterprise run by Anthony Cross, on websites such as www.CompanyCheck.co.uk and www.SoloCheck.ie.
For this reason they told BH Truck that the company is legitimate and they should trust it.
“Here is a link to the company,” said one commenter, linking to the allegedly fraudulent website, “and here is a report of the company and their business,” he added, linking to the legitimate farm business run by Anthony Cross on www.CompanyCheck.co.uk.
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