An alert garage owner has uncovered a scam to steal thousands of pounds from businesses.

Mark Buckle, who owns Scotts Garages in Lewes Road, Brighton, received an email from a foreign "customer" who said he wanted to buy a Ford estate car.

The emailer said a UK-based company owed him money so he would get them to send the garage a cheque to pay for the car.

But because the cheque was for a greater value than the car, Mr Buckle would have to send the "change" - about £1,000 - to the buyer.

A week later Mr Buckle received a cheque from a civil engineering company called R E Docwra in Uxbridge, Middlesex, now known as Clancy Docwra.

Mr Buckle, who was suspicious, got in touch with the company and found the cheque had been "cloned". He was asked to rip it up.

The cheque would not have bounced but eventually the company would have realised it had not authorised the payment and cancelled the transaction.

Mr Buckle said: "The scam clearly preys on people who are maybe having cash-flow difficulties, need the money and get a bit greedy.

"More established businesses like ourselves would tend to be wary of things like this but start-up firms may be tempted to trust them."

Clancy Docwra said it had made the police aware of the scam.