Major scam at my shop

[linty]

So last week I get an email from a member of a deaf church requesting information on a "furniture lock", pricing and availability, etc. I can see that he's also CC'ed the same email to a couple other locksmiths.

The person who wrote the email posted dimensions and specs for the lock which meant nothing until I punched them into google and found the original site they were looking at.

I asked them for a few details, quoted them on 50 locks.

They replied and said now they needed 400, so I updated my quote and called my distributors to make sure I could get that kind of order together in a reasonable amount of time. No Problem. I keep offering to mail the customer (who is in the US) a sample so he can confirm that it will suit his needs, but he goes ahead and gives me 2 credit card numbers and says charge half to each (this is a 3600 dollar order). I go ahead and charge them, and the cards are approved.

Next email I get from him, he tells me his wife just had an accident, he has to go to amsterdam, these locks need to get to a church in Ghana, and since he's deaf I need to contact a freight company (in Ghana) and get pricing to have them shipped and I also need to contact western union to pay the freight company. He will provide me with a credit card number to pay the freight via western union.

Now there were lots of odd things along the way that made me wonder about this guy, but I had just figured him as being a bit on the stupid side.
At this point however, I felt more than a bit suspicious. I called the credit card companies and found out that one of the two card numbers was associated with fraud and neither of them belonged to him.

The first thing I did once I found this out was to call the other locksmiths who the email had originally been sent to to warn them, but apparently in Toronto they've seen this kind of thing before.

I personally can't even figure out how the scam works. Right now I have somebodies money, and he has nothing of mine. I'm tempted to play along just to see how it works. As it stands he's waiting for me to contact his freight company and doesn't know I'm on to him.

Anyways, it's pretty surprising that they'd be trying to scam locksmiths of all people. I guess most of the more obvious targets (electronics, etc.) may already be weary of this kind of thing.

[freakparade3]

Take the wife on a nice long vacation on the scammers dime.

[Phatphish]

Here's my take on it,

Firstly he's is probably not in the US, and so wont care about a sample being sent.

Secondly, he has probably set up a fake Ghana freight company, or works with people who have.

He pays for 400 locks with two stolen unreported cards, so each card doesn’t go over its limit and get flagged by the Credit Co.

You contact fake shipping Co, they give you nice expensive quote, he gets you to pay again using another stolen card via western union.
He/they receive money from Western Union, and promptly disappear.

You are happy, all money in the bank, and send off parcel.

Now they might have used you as a way of finding out if the cards had been cancelled or not, the first time they used them, and are only interested in the cash sent via Western union.
They may also still want to receive your package (If a dodgy shipping co was used) and do a runner with locks and shipping money.

Card Company eventually finds out, and wants its money back from who they think has it.
Namely you, for two transactions for 400 locks, you got that in your account, they will want it back, and one transaction for shipping paid to fake/dodgy company via Western Union.
"Western Union does not offer an escrow service or any type of "purchase protection" policy."
Simply put, once you send your money, there is no protection on it, and no way to get it back.

So the bad guys have all or part of the shipping money and possibly a bunch of locks as well.
While you are left out of pocket by 3600 dollars AND 400 locks.
Not sure who's going to get the short end of the stick between the CC company and Western Union, but its not going to affect the people at the other end of this scam.

The trail is going to be fairly hard to follow, because YOU did all the transactions as an honest trader, only an email to link him and yourself.


This is just one scenario, there are probably several others.
Good job you spotted something and alerted the CC companies.





All of the above may be complete twaddle, if it is, my apologies

[linty]

Yeah, I might just call this freight company to see how much they want. I can't imagine them trying to quote for more than 500 dollars without making it seem too suspicious. If that's the case it's a lot of work for these guys to get ~500 dollars out a total of 3 stolen credit cards. Maybe they thought they were buying heavier locks, but these ones are probably less than 1/5 of a pound each.

I'm really glad I held off on actually placing the order right away because something seemed off. I would have had a really hard time returning 400 locks.

[J-Hood]

It is my understanding that fraudulent charges on credit cards fall back on the vendor. When you sign up for the contract to take payment by credit card you sign an agreement to check the signiture and/or ID of people using CCs in your store. It doesn't matter to the CC company that you didn't choose to read the fine print because it is all there in black and white for you when they let you know that you owe them the money. With a phone order there is no verification of the user available and you are on a higher risk of getting nailed. This is why you will walk into a large chain store that you shop at once a week forever and suddenly they check your signiture and ID for the first time. That means that they just got hit and lost out.

I may be completely wrong in all this but I have heard the same info from a few store managers and whatnot.

Another thing in this same realm is if you write "see ID" on the back of your credit card and do not sign your name as it states some companies will not offer protection to you at the time of theft of the card. I had a customer that this happened to. The person he contacted on the phone asked if he had signed the card and he told them he had written "see ID" to which they responded that was not what the text on the card tells you to do and they are not responsible for his loss.

Jason

[mitch.capper]

I think the primary goal of his here is the western union transfer and that money would end up getting to him. He does the CC stuff and such to make it less susicious so you are more likely to handle paying the 'shipping company' by western union for him.

3 fraud CC's he gives you (or 2) you dont lose product but do lost the WU money.

[dougfarre]

Put the money in the bank, make some interest on it until the credit card company come back looking for it.

[mh]

The usual fraud part of it involves just
- you receive money through credit card or wire transfer
- you are supposed to bring part of the money in cash to Western Union
- you will have to pay back the money you received initially because you legally don't own it.

That's all, but in this simple form too obvious these days, so they place a lot of stories around it to lure more people into their scam.
In Germany, they 'hire' people to become their sales agents, just for the same purpose. That's the typical way to make use of all the online banking passwords they received from phishing attacks...

Cheers,
mh

[linty]

Yeah it was essentially a roundabout way to get money from a stolen credit card turned into cash. There is no shipping company.

I played along and got a shipping quote from his obviously fake freight company for 3310.20 US.

Just for fun this is what I wrote back to him.

Hi Mr. Williams,
Sorry about the delay, I was having some difficulty in converting the weight between American pounds and Canadian pounds.
I contacted the shipping company and the amount they wanted was exorbitant! I sincerely support the efforts of the World Miracle Church in Ghana as well as your own efforts in helping to bring the message of to those who are hard of hearing. I feel we share a bond as my sister suffers from a hearing impairment. In the spirit of charity I have already arranged to have the locks shipped directly from the factory at my own expense. Please let the reverend know they are already on their way and he should be expecting them within the week.

God Bless,
[linty]

to which he responded several times practically begging me to "return" the locks so that I can ship them through this specific freight company.

I'm curious though as to what happens to people who go through with these scams. It hardly seems fair that the company who was duped should suffer if they did nothing wrong. I have a friend who works in credit cards and I'm having her look into what would have likely happened.

[linty]

oh, and I contacted western union to inform them of an account that is being used to receive fraud funds. The lady who was quite rude said "we're not the police" and then basically told me that they don't care about where the money is coming from or going to. I had at least expected that they could flag the account and ask the recipient for extra proof of identification next time he tried to receive a payment. I would imagine western union is involved in a lot of fraud and really expected them to care a little more about trying to stop it.

[WOT]

You dug yourself into a hole charging the credit cards. The legitimate owners will find out, then request a charge back. Without having a valid signature, you won't win your charge back.

I'd void the transaction and refund, before you get the charge back if at all possible.

What this guy's doing is that he wants to make you think you've been paid, and have you give someone that will benefit the scammer and/or their affiliate WU transfer.

Then, you'll get a charge back, and you'll be out the charge back fee + whatever you gave him in WU.

This is called advance fee fraud/419 Nigeria.

Things to look out for;
1. Western Union

2. How they address you. "Dear Sir".. do you ever get addressed that way? no, it's polite but awkward.

3. Funky grammar.

[lunchb0x]

and

4. dear sir,

I am the prince if nigeria, my grandfather has passed away and left eleventy billiond dollars, I will need your credit card number

[Mutzy]

A friend at another forum has a scam, and he ended up dragging the guy along for ages. I still recon he shoulda asked for the $5,000 deposit.

Scam

[mh]

Well, I don't think there was any dragging around, other than getting already pre-written standardized replies.

You can have the same type of reply e-mails when you complain to your internet service provider about the level of service, or anything similar.

Be careful, once you get such criminals really involved, they may start to really threaten you. After all, they are criminals, and they might even have friends in your own country.
And they will never give you any money that hasn't been stolen from someone else and that you could rightfully keep...

Cheers,
mh

[prag]

in South Africa there is also a similiar scam to this. it happened to a close relative of mine. this is how they operate. you'll get a call for a very large order. a deposit will be requested by the shop owner and be paid in by the "client". what is reflected when doing online banking checking is a deposit was paid into your banking account. this is done just before the banks closes and is done with a cheque which normally takes 7 working days to clear. then the business owner gets a call from the "client' that they overpaid the deposit eg, instead of 2500 they would have deposited 25 000. they request a money transfer of the balance.
trust me a allot of people were caught out.
luckily the person that this happen to told them he needed to verify the deposit and that the banks only opened on Monday again. there was no further communication with the "client" and it so happen the cheque was stolen.

it happens all over and we do live in a small world