Believe it: Even when working with ‘legitimate’ business contacts, some transactions can provide opportunities for criminals.

They are not so different from me and you.

They need cash. Though not formally employed, they do have fruitful careers. Like other businesspeople, they spend their days figuring out creative ways to get paid for their services. They work all over the world, travel, meet interesting people and close deals over coffee. Every day offers new, challenging, exciting opportunities.

Their goal is to get you to provide them with personal information.

Trust is a key component of doing business, but so is skepticism. Today, we can engage in business all over the world without ever meeting the vendors in person. That’s good and bad. These long-distance transactions can provide excellent opportunities for businesspeople, as well as for criminals.

Members of our international services team are frequently contacted by clients who are in uncomfortable situations with their customers or vendors. In one instance, our client was a broker involved in international real estate. He’d been referred to us by a longstanding client who knew that our team frequently assists international clients in purchasing property in the United States by providing advice regarding structural alternatives and U.S. income tax and estate tax implications.

The broker was working with a potential buyer who was searching for multiunit residential rental properties in Florida.

Over the course of a few months, the broker and the international buyer developed a working relationship and established a certain degree of trust. When they finally found a suitable property and the broker requested a deposit, the international buyer asked for assistance in getting the money into the United States. Specifically, he requested the use of the broker’s account, explaining a number of reasons for the difficulty in getting his funds out of his home country, China. The two had established a collegial and professional business relationship, so the request for assistance seemed harmless. However, before continuing with the transaction, the broker wisely asked our international group if we had seen situations similar to his. We immediately advised against moving forward on the deal.

In another situation, a different real estate broker had a customer who sent more money than was required for the closing. Once the buyer sent the funds to the escrow account, the buyer immediately instructed the broker to wire the overpayment to another entity. We advised the client not to refund the additional funds but rather contact their attorney.

In this common scam, the overpayment amount is supposed to be sent by the broker before the funds are cleared from the buyer. The bank later notifies the broker that the entire amount was a fraudulent transaction, and the overpayment amount that was already sent cannot be recovered because the broker did not wait for the original transfer amount to properly clear.

According to www.snopes.com, a Web site devoted to confirming or debunking rumors and urban legends, these are variations of a scam that has been circulating since the 1920s. And, although the scam has been around since before the dawn of the Internet, it continues to ensnare the unsuspecting.

In previous versions of these schemes, you might have received a letter, fax or e-mail requesting assistance in getting a large sum of money out of a foreign country, often from a person in a nation experiencing political unrest. Sometimes, the person claimed ties to religious organizations or nonprofit groups; often they had an unsuspected but “legitimate” windfall and simply needed help moving funds out of the country. The common thread is that in return for the use of your bank account, you are promised a percentage of the money.

The scams our clients were subject to are unique in that the criminals patiently took the time to present themselves as “legitimate” business contacts. They gradually built relationships and gained the trust of an accommodating professional. The request to use the bank account of the potential victim came long after the relationship was established. In similar scenarios, when the transaction was about to take place, political turmoil or the chaos of the financial institutions in the client’s country would threaten to derail an otherwise lucrative transaction. Often the client offers a financial incentive — perhaps better terms in the deal or a bonus — for the use of a stateside bank account.

In the cases above, the brokers could have lost funds, but they could have also been included in a fraud investigation. Had they proceeded, their situation would have qualified as a money-laundering scheme, and although our brokers were innocent victims, they could have been held legally responsible.

We would all like to believe we are too smart to be taken. Yet, these new angles on an old trick should serve as a reminder to reexamine how carefully we perform due diligence in our transactions. This may be the right time to review your due-diligence process as a whole. There are a number of lessons to be learned from this story, but the most important is this, and there is no gray area here: Never provide your bank account for someone else to use.

Editor’s note: Laura Olivieri is an international services tax manager with LarsonAllen LLP. She can be reached at lolivieri@larsonallen.com.