Almost every week you probably receive an email offering you mailing lists. If you have booked into a tradeshow you might get an offer from an overseas company to buy the list of visitors.

The deal seems almost too good to be true - and that is because it is. These are scammers trying to get your money and some of them are pretty good at what they do. If you get a list it will be rubbish from an old phone directory or possibly a download from LinkedIn.    

Show organisers say it is a common scam.

Tim Collett from the Foodservice show says “these fake lists plague every show and every industry. We obviously don’t share the lists of exhibitors or visitors. However they get a list of company names from the show website and just do a generic email blast. We warn exhibitors regularly but sadly a few get caught each year. My advice is to treat every single one as a scam”.

Foodservice Australia 2022, 2^nd September 2022