Apart from writing websites and operating a computer software company, we also put our 3 cars out to work as wedding cars, this year booking 152 weddings.

10 days ago, we received an email enquiry for a wedding in mid December. The enquirer was booking this as a surprise for the wedding couple who were both employed by his company. He was insistent that he wanted a Bentley as opposed to a Silver Cloud. He was quite enthralled by the R Type and asked many questions about the history of the car. The routing and timings of the wedding were not particular easy so our quotation for the wedding car was high (£600.00) to take these factors into account.

A few days later, the client emailed us again saying that he would also like to book a second car if we could reduce the price somewhat and if so, he would pay for both cars together in full by credit card. Being not particularly fussed whether we did the wedding or not, we declined to reduce. He eventually accepted the price for both cars and asked us, by email, to debit his credit card for £1200.00 at the same time as giving us the names of the couple, pickup points, times, church and reception locations. We confirmed the details back to him asking for an address to send the confirmation details. His reply set the alarm bells ringing - Nigeria.

Mk VI and R Type Bentleys

In a quandary, we decided to telephone the credit card company rather than put the transaction through the PDQ terminal. We explained the situation, gave them all the details and after a short delay, they accepted the transaction, gave us an authority number and told us to put the transaction through the PDQ. ( Through a misunderstanding, this processed the transaction twice, so a few days later, our bank account was credited with £2400.00.) The client was not aware of this. We also felt a bit guilty for having to query the client's honesty in the first instance.

We were just about the refund the overpayment when another email comes in from the client. He had found out that unbeknown to him, the groom had already booked a car so could we cancel one of them. Rather than mess around with credit card transactions, could we refund the cost of one car through his Western Union account? That settled it as far as we were concerned and we replied that it was not possible to do this.

We then checked with the hotel and the church - "No sir, no such bookings have been made with us". The pickup contact telephone numbers are unavailable.

No word from Nigeria so we have now cancelled the car reservations. There is a slight dilemma, our bank account is sitting on £2400.00 of someone's money, we don't know whose yet but someday, someone may notice that they are short. At the moment I'm not incline to refund anybody until we are convinced we know who is who?