Warning to Sutlers on Freight Scam

[mmescher]

Just a warning if you do mail order that internet scams are alive and well and working the vendors of reenacting goods. We were recently stung by an order supposedly from Germany. I won't give all the details but it boiled down to the purchaser really wasn't interested in the merchandise -- he wanted the shipping money. So we are now immediately suspicious of anyone asking us to wire money. We were concentrating so much on the order we didn't miss what in hindsight was an obvious warning flag. Fortunately we were able to avoid a bigger loss thanks to the alertness of our credit card service. If you want to know the details so you can avoid a similar hit, send me a PM.

[maillemaker]

Out of curiosity, if they were purchasing, how would they be wired money?

When I was a vendor, I used to get scam orders also. Normally they were from African countries, and you could tell the order was suspicious because they would order quantities of things that did not make sense for a typical order. The few times I called these in to the credit card companies invariably it was a stolen credit card being used to try to make the purchases.

Steve

[Mint Julep]

Order in or order out?

[mmescher]

The purchaser, who was supposedly from Germany, paid us for the merchandise and shipping cost and asked us to coordinate with the shipper who needed money wired to him. First moral, don't wire money. The credit card they used to pay for the order was accepted by the service. Second moral, check with the loss prevention unit of your credit card service and don't rely on the card just because it was accepted.