Air conditioning specialist, Daikin Australia, warns print industry to watch out about an alleged printing and intellectual property scam.
The Printing Industries Association of Australia has brought this to our attention.
The alleged scam involves an approach from a person using the name "Rodney Packer" seeking the production of 100,000 flyers to promote a website: www.daikinair.com which incorrectly claims to be affiliated with the Daikin brand. The request is being made to printers in different states across the country. (See artwork sample at right).
The only contact with Rodney Packer or daikinair.com has been via e-mail. Credit card information is provided for payment of the print job (which may also involve distribution of the flyers where printers are able to do this) but, according to General Counsel for Daikin Australia, there is evidence in cases to date that the cards have been stolen.
Printing Industries national communication and technical services manager, Joe Kowalewski, said Daikin Australia had sought assistance from the association to warn members and had referred the matter to the police along with all available documentation provided by printing companies who had already become involved.
"The company is also compiling legal documents to protect its assets and intellectual property," he said.
"Our advice from banks is that any company receiving payment via a stolen credit card is liable to repay the amount credited to them back to the bank or cardholder. In most cases the credit card information would be declined by the bank at the time of processing – after the job had been completed and significant expense incurred by the printing company.”
Kowalewski said the seriousness of the situation was illustrated when the official website for Daikin Australia – www.daikin.com.au – was attacked and taken off-line. It has now been restored and contains a consumer warning in relation to the misrepresentation of its brand and products.
"We have also been issued with a statement from Daikin outlining their concerns in relation to the flyer printing and also containing the consumer warning from their website,” he said.
Any company which has been approached or is approached to print anything on behalf of Daikin, should contact Daikin Australia and speak to the company's general counsel, Maria Zoras-Christo on (02) 9725 8888.
Members who receive such an approach can also contact Joe Kowalewski at Printing Industries on (02) 8789 7380 E-mail: joe@printnet.com.au
The Printing Industries Association of Australia
www.printnet.com.au
