Be Aware Small Business Owners of Fraud!! Bill Wiley & David Bernath

[GaiaNaturalSoaps]

Hello all,
I am Miri and started my online soap shop, Gaia Natural Soaps, not too long ago. I love this forum. I get a lot of information from here. Today, I would like to contribute. I would like to warn you about internet scam. Last week I got a large soap order through email. His name is Bill Wiley. Then he paid upfront with stolen credit card. He paid next day shipping for 125lb soap which is $1827.24 to Puerto Rico. He said he supplies soaps for hotels there. These are all lies. The problem is he sent me information about a shipping company he wanted to use. He ask me to pay the shipping company right away to schedule pick up!! The shipping company only accept a bank wire. This is scam. DO NOT wire any money. They will pick a long distance place to ship, so they can the shipping fee as high as possible. This is used to be scams for glass bottle companies.
I attached below an email from shipping company. Please spread this email to other business owners.
Airline Flight
May 8 (7 days ago)

to me

THANKS FOR CHOOSING OUR FREIGHT AND PLEASE NOTE THAT IT'S OUR COMPANY POLICY TO ACCEPT ALL PAYMENTS PRIOR PICKUP AND WE CURRENTLY ACCEPT ALL PAYMENTS VIA MONEY BANK TRANSFERS YES WE CAN TAKE THE PAYMENT AND BOOK IT BELOW ARE OUR BANKING DETAILS TO WHICH ALL PAYMENTS TO THE SHIPPING COMPANY IS MADE VIA WIRE TRANSFERS TO OUR HEADQUARTERS
BENEFICIARY NAME : : SASHA K KING
BANK NAME : SC TELCO FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
BENEFICIARY ACCOUNT#: 1010 0001 29405
BENEFICIARY ROUTINE#: 253279277
BANK ADDRESS : :130 N TOWN DR
BENEFICIARY CITY: SPARTANBURG
BENEFICIARY STATE: SC
BENEFICIARY ZIP:29303
BENEFICIARY PHONE : +1 800-922-0446
................................................
BENEFICIARY ADDRESS: : 846 CARSON AVE
BENEFICIARY CITY: SPARTANBURG
BENEFICIARY STATE: SC
BENEFICIARY ZIP: 29306
Phone: 762 359 4576

WE REQUIRE THAT YOU PROVIDE US HERE WITH A COPY OF THE TRANSFER RECEIPT FOR CONFIRMATION AND ALSO PLEASE PROVIDE US HERE WITH YOUR CURRENT FAX NUMBER AS WE WILL SEND YOU A PAID INVOICE ONCE THE FREIGHT FUNDS ARE RECEIVED AND ALSO NOTE THAT WE WILL HANDLE ALL THE PAPER WORK AND DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THIS SHIPMENT AS WE WILL ONLY REQUIRE SOMEONE FROM YOUR COMPANY TO BE PRESENT DURING PICKUP TIME TO SIGN A PORTION OF OUR INTERNATIONAL AIRWAY BILL. WE LOOK FORWARD TO HEAR FROM YOUR MOST CONVENIENT TIME.
Yours sincerely
Air Flight Shipping Logistics
762 359 4576

[email protected]
[email protected]
Operation Manager
Mr.David Bernath

 

[shunt2011]

As an FYI this is very common. I personally receive emails at least once every month or two. People post about it all the time on forums and facebook groups. Unfortunately they are looking for folks just like you who jumped at an opportunity without doing their homework and saw dollar signs. It certainly stinks but there are scammers everywhere on the interwebs.

 

[Kamahido]

I too get these once in a while, along with a plethora of other scams. They all say about the same things. Still have trouble believing people fall for these.

If they had the money to buy such large amounts of soap, they could afford something better than a gmail email address!

 

[cmzaha]

When my daughter was selling heavily online we received these quite often. Of course the first time she received one she became excited then sat down to think about it and decided it was bogus. Sadly, this is common.

 

[GaiaNaturalSoaps]

I am glad a lot of you are aware of this. I thought it was too fishy as well. So, I discarded their orders. I was lucky to catch it before any thing happens. Thank you, all.

 

[ItsForrest]

Not just small businesses are targeted by these scammers. As a bookkeeper I've had to stop more than one sales rep from processing orders like this.
I've seen the bogus, prepaid freight forwarder scam more than once.
The other one that I see a lot is the overpay by check and ask for Western Union or gift card to refund the overpay.
It's been going on for years and isn't going to stop any time soon.

It never hurts to remind people to think twice about unusual orders.
We all want that big order but if it looks too good, it more than likely is a scam.

 

[jules92207]

Always a good reminder these scam artists are everywhere, thanks for the heads up!

 

[amd]

I've received a few emails such as this, and also "Do you ship to sweden, would like to order 1000 bars of soap". I delete without reply. My practice is to only follow up wholesale orders I have personally vetted. I have no idea why someone in Sweden would want to buy 1000 bars of soap they have never tried, especially if they have found me via my Etsy store or website then they should know I am not a 1000 bars of soap business. The most in-stock I usually carry of any one item is 18 bars, or 50-ish if I'm getting ready for a lot of shows or Christmas. (Yep, I'm pretty small beans.) Granted, I have 40-some "flavors"... but still... it's not making sense logically. Great reminder for us to keep our heads.

 

[Kamahido]

I am glad a lot of you are aware of this. I thought it was too fishy as well. So, I discarded their orders. I was lucky to catch it before any thing happens. Thank you, all.

Glad to hear you didn't lose any money over this!

 

[I_like_melts]

"I'm sorry, I only ship USPS / UPS."

 

[GaiaNaturalSoaps]

I was frustrated by government. I reported internet crime complaint center. No respond at all. It is sad world we are living in... good and honest people have to protect themselves against these bad people.. seems like our law exist to protect bad not good people. They wait until we become victim.. even than they don't do much.

 

[amd]

The sad part is that for every one that is able to be stopped, there are three more waiting with a new scam.

 

[shunt2011]

They have no way of keeping up with all the scams. I probably get 6-10 of these a year. I just delete and move on. They warn folks all the time to be careful. Investigate if in doubt. I actually tried to investigate one for fun that I got a couple years ago and it was near impossible. So, ended up being obvious it was a scam.