# scam alert



## lts (Dec 2, 2013)

I have a small soap and candle business. Last week I was contacted regarding a good sized candle order As it turns out they want ed me to use a specific freight company. The goal is to scam me out of the freight charges on a stolen credit card. Some things to look out for are: 1. Poor spelling and grammar. English is not their first language and they make obvious mistakes. 2. They may ship to a friend usually out of the country. 3. A "partner" may call to give a credit card number. 4. They have American sounding names but have very strong foreign accents.  5.  they want to use a certain freight company.  the quote is only good for a few days and they want the product at this "good" freight rate before it goes up.   6.  If seems to good to be true it just might be.  7.  they are happy paying unreasonable prices for the product freight included 3 times usual price.  The freight company only accepts bank transfer or money gram.  

 Just because the buyer has an accent does not mean he is a scammer. It just means you have work to do.  Google the name of the buyer.  if it unusual and belongs to a murder victim...   use the reverse pone tools, if it is a magicjack number it may be problems.  They can manipulate the device to look like they are calling from a number in the states but are actually in another country.  Even if the credit card goes through and the transaction still has some smell to it , call the credit card company.  They can give you the number if the issuing bank.  They can tell you if the card has been stolen or valid They can alert the card owner who can confirm the sale.  They don't want the product, they want the freight money

 They tried this on me and wasted a lot of my time.  A little work will flush these people out and save others lots of money.  This deal had a smell to it from the beginning.  As a salesman I am not one to let a sale slip by but not willing to be scammed either.  Let's make them waste lots of their time changing names emails and phone numbers.  

 They found me through a google search so they can find you too.


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## seven (Dec 3, 2013)

Wow, thank u for the info. This brought me straight back to my ebay days. Lost a LV bag to a scammer from the philippines who stole someone's paypal 

A couple details were similar, they were pushy, wanted the item shipped asap. I tried to stop the shipment but failed. It was a major painful lesson.

Earlier last month i was in aussie and bought lots of soap supplies. Some suppliers only take cc via paypal, and since mine is non aussie paypal wont let me have the item shipped to my aussie address. Some sellers were kind enough and will still ship to my aussie address. Just saying, that sometimes there are situations that needed you to 'detour' a lil bit. I am 100% legit tho


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## soap_rat (Dec 3, 2013)

Thanks for the warning, it seems a bit like a craft business version of the craigslist scam.  Most people do want things shipped quickly, (I was panic ordering last week!) so that makes it hard to put on the brakes and check things out.  I'm glad you didn't lose money.


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## roseb (Dec 3, 2013)

Thank you, Its!  However, they don't just attack soap businesses.  My friend is an artist and he almost got taken by a very similar scam.  Like Its said...if it sounds too good it probably is.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Dec 3, 2013)

I think if someone was only willing to use a specific carrier, I would suggest that they organise (and pay directly!) for the shipment to be collected on an agreed date rather than even begin the hassle of setting up with another company just as a one-off.

Either the customer buys the product with delivery and take the delivery that you supply, or they just purchase the product and sort the rest out themselves.  

No different if they wanted an order but the packaging had to be provided by a firm of their choice - I would again make sure that they sort that out for themselves or they go with my supplier.


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## shunt2011 (Dec 3, 2013)

Everyone should be aware.  I have received no less than 4 of these requests in the last 2 months.  They are scams, do not even respond to them.   Many on my facbook forums have received these as well.


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## ourwolfden (Dec 3, 2013)

I know many people on Etsy have been approached this way, my Dad had someone try this on him when he was trying to sell his bike on Ebay.  You just have to be really careful.


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## DeeAnna (Dec 3, 2013)

My experience is related, but different. In late September, someone decided to involve my Iowa-based business in their scam. They mailed out roughly 100 USPS priority mail envelopes containing checks to pay for "wages", or to buy stuff off CraigsList, and the like. They put my business address as the return address on these envelopes to make the envelope appear legitimate and to misdirect their victims.

The checks, of course, were bogus -- this is the old, tired scam in which the scammers overpay the victim and demand that the victim write a personal check for the overpayment and give or mail it to the scammer. Annoyed victims were confronting me, since they assumed the checks came from my biz. All of these priority mail labels were purchased from an outfit called "shiprush.com". 

About the time that the victims, my postmaster, and I all started to figure it all out, the scammers moved on. I'm assuming they took advantage of another hapless small business just long enough to mail out more crap and make those business owners' lives miserable for a few weeks.

My postmaster said a similar scam was recently caught in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where the scammers paid a Cornell University student to stuff priority mail envelopes with bogus checks. Guess what ... the labels they gave to the student to use also came from "shiprush.com". I don't quite know if shiprush is somehow involved in these scams or if it just happens that the scammers are using an otherwise legitimate service to do their stuff. 

<sigh> The joys of doing business.....


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## ParkSoap (Jan 2, 2014)

I was contacted by one of these shipping scammers a couple of weeks ago, too. :-x

They seem to be targeting a lot of soap makers, as I found this when I googled the shipping company email address that the scammers wanted me to contact.

http://edgewatersoaps.blogspot.com/2013/06/international-shipping-scams-part-3-out.html


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jan 3, 2014)

A very interesting read.

While it's often thought to be good business to bend over backwards to help your customers, smaller businesses and sole operators often take it too far.  As I said before, if a customer wants my products but with things like packaging or shipping to be supplied by their chosen supplier, I'd only agree if they were dealing with all of that directly.


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## cmzaha (Jan 3, 2014)

shunt2011 said:


> Everyone should be aware. I have received no less than 4 of these requests in the last 2 months. They are scams, do not even respond to them. Many on my facbook forums have received these as well.


 
We get these several times a week


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## CaraCara (Jan 3, 2014)

Just a note on shipping using freight companies...Oftentimes the terms and conditions will indicate that if the appointed payor refuses to pay the bill then the shipper is legally responsible, even if the consignee is the appointed payor and the freight moves on their account.  Of course, the answer to this is to refuse to pay anything but just keep that in mind when shipping on someone else's dime and you're not familiar with them.  This may not apply to European forwarders but it does apply to us on this side of the pond.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jan 3, 2014)

CaraCara said:


> Just a note on shipping using freight companies...Oftentimes the terms and conditions will indicate that if the appointed payor refuses to pay the bill then the shipper is legally responsible, even if the consignee is the appointed payor and the freight moves on their account.  Of course, the answer to this is to refuse to pay anything but just keep that in mind when shipping on someone else's dime and you're not familiar with them.  This may not apply to European forwarders but it does apply to us on this side of the pond.



Depends on who is defined as 'shipper', 'consignee' and 'payer'.  If a company is being paid by someone to send a truck to my business to collect some goods and take them to somewhere else unconnected with me, then I don't think that I fit any of those descriptions - my customer owns the stock and so I am not shipping anything, rather they are moving it from one place to another.


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