I received this email from Kurt, who was approched about shipping fence material to Ghana. Kurt passed this on to me and was curious as to if anyone else has been approached. If not, just be warned about this scam.
This is what Kurt said:
Yesterday, I received a relay phone call (which I thought was used only by deaf people to correspond with the hearing public) asking for a price on 6 foot 11 1/2 gauge chain link fabric, looking to see if I had 2500 feet and what the price would be. After giving the person the price, I received another relay call changing the amount to 1750 feet and please send the quote via email. I did, and during the night I received an email with two credit card numbers to charge the amount to. After that transaction was done, I subsequently received an email asking me to ship the materials to Ghana, and to please use a certain freight company that this person wanted. He would be unable to arrange shipment because he was being called away to a meeting. (That rang a bell with me. I had received a email at the end of July asking for a price on a lot of 4 foot by 10 foot panels. After I responded to that email, the person emailed back that the price was fine with them and could I please arrange delivery to a West African country. This gentlemen would not be able to do so because his wife was giving birth to a baby in Australia.)
After sending an email to the shipping company that he wish to use, the person who yesterday would not talk to me in person, called me to say that the shipping company responds to emails very quickly and to please see if I had received a response. This was the same gentleman who was going to be unable to contact the shipping company because he was going to be tied up in meetings. When I read the reply by the shipping company, it requested that I pay the money for the shipping via a Western Union Money Transfer. As I read the reply by the shipping company it struck me that the amount of the charge from our location to Ghana was not enough money, nor had I given them enough information as to the size of the shipment, I had only corresponded regarding the weight, not the dimensions the total number of pieces or any of the other necessary info to actually pick up the shipment. While I am reading this email, the gentleman on the phone is pressuring me to take a new credit card number (not either of the two he originally emailed) and use the money to get the Money Transfer. I very politely, but firmly responded that he would have to take the necessary steps to make the payment directly to the shipping company, but he was extremely insistent that I take his credit card number and convert the charge to a money transfer. I refused, told him I would refund his credit cards with the charges and then said goodbye.
Again I don't know if other fence companies are being contacted by this type of transaction, but it appears that it is a scam.
Anyone else had experinces with this or other scams? Let us know.
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Same story! Once we discovered that this was a scam I made it my hobby to frustrate these boys. We worked them for 10-14 days hard. Every request for information we made they found something to send. I even talked to the "deaf" guy twice. We called the bank that issued the card and they informed us that the purchase maybe not be authorized. We even called the local FBI for help. They would not provide any assistance at all. Very discouraging. Businesses that have good business procedures will usually avoid scams as this.
Thanks for getting this info out. Back in June and July we had the same incident. Shortly after initial contact, as the referenced company, we realized this was a scam. We contacted the local police department, and over a course of about three weeks we were able to obtain about 11 different credit card numbers from the customer. All were stolen, of course, however most had never been reported. These numbers were randomly picked by the scammers. Apparently, this is a huge scam going on right now using the TYDD phone service. There are no regulations and the relay operators can only relay what the client says to them, even if they know it is a scam. We tried to get the word out but local television wasn't interested. Our credit card processing company said they see this happening all the time now and a lot of smaller businesses are falling prey because it sounds great, a large order with no installation. Hopefully other companies will see this and know better if they are contacted. Thanks again.
As a seller and renter of fence products, we often receive calls and emails of a similar nature. When we ask to caller/emailer to fax us a copy of both sides of each credit card, they aren't heard from again. This is a VERY common scam.
I just read on comment on Possible Scam. I just so happens our fence co. had the same person to the same thing to us. We took his credit cards and the scenario was almost the same. We found out that he had used a stolen credit card. This is definately a scam and he needs to be stopped somehow.
My name is Chris Hauquitz and I am with Scott's Fencing Co., Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have been contacted 4 different times and the only difference is where the wife was having the baby.
My name is Chris Hauquitz and I am with Scott's Fencing Co., Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have been contacted 4 different times and the only difference is where the wife was having the baby.
Same type of contact made to our company. I knew it had to be a scam right off. Why would someone contact a new, small, wholesale company to ship materials to Africa? I know there's many suppliers a lot closer than we are.
It's a scam. There was a similar story exposed on Dateline NBC with electronics involved. The credit car numbers are stolen.
It's a scam. The credit card numbers are stolen.
We were contacted about a man buying 1000 feet of 6 foot fabric. He gave us a CC and we tried to run it but it would not charge. we emailed him and the person sent 2 more numbers which we tried, and they also would not work. My heads up assistant called the CC company and found out all 3 were stolen. The same person tried again the next day with 2 other card numbers and then someone else tried the next week for the same scam.
Robert O'Neal
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