A YORK businessman told today how he foiled a £21,000 Nigerian scam - and warned other businesses to be on their guard.

Police reinforced his warnings, revealing that at least two other North Yorkshire people had fallen victim to similar cons, costing them four-figure sums.

Nick Ledger said his firm, UK Juicers, which is based at Acaster Malbis, and sells and distributes juicing and other kitchen equipment, had received an emailed order from Mokola, Nigeria, for £2,359-worth of juicers, kitchen blenders and food mixers.

His suspicions were aroused by a total lack of interest in obtaining a discount for quite a large order. "They just didn't bother."

Then one day he was looking at the firm's internet bank account and saw that a total of £23,359 had been paid in.

Within hours, he received an email headed "Terrible Mistake," and saying: "My client has just informed me that there was a mistake from his account officer, that the funds wired was more than the agreed price. He was supposed to send 2,359.55 pounds into your account but his account officer made a mistake."

Asked to pay back the balance, Nick fortunately replied that he would have to wait for the cheques to clear first before he did so.

Both cheques, which had been paid in to banks in London, subsequently bounced, and it emerged that one of them had been stolen, while the other was from an account that no longer existed.

Nick said that, because his was a family business, every claim for payment was closely examined, but it was possible that for other businesses dealing with scores of payments every day, the scam could slip through the net and the conmen would walk away with a huge profit.

Detective Sergeant Ian Illingworth, of North Yorkshire Police's Economic Crime Unit, urged businesses and individuals to beware of such scams, which had become much more prevalent this year.

He said at least two individuals in the county had fallen victim to similar cons. One of them had been contacted by an address in Nigeria after an advertisement for his car had been spotted on the internet.

The vendor had agreed a sale and then received a cheque for considerably too much. He had then agreed to send back a cheque for the four-figure "overpayment", before the cheque sent to him had bounced.

DS Illingworth said such scams operated from abroad were particularly difficult to investigate, and his advice to people receiving cheques was to always make sure they had fully cleared before sending out any goods or money.

Updated: 08:47 Saturday, September 27, 2003