|
I'd like to share with you a way technology is being used to defraud many small businesses and may expose you to losses that can be devastating to your bottom line. The primary target for this scheme is retailers, however anyone that sells products and takes credit cards is at risk.
Hopefully sharing the techniques and processes used will prevent you from becoming the next victim. It all starts with a phone call to your business and as you answer the phone you hear; “This is a (phone company) relay call, will you accept?” or in most cases “This is (phone company) with an Internet relay call, will you accept?” For anyone familiar with the hearing impaired assisted living technologies, this wouldn't be a reason for alarm. Ok, lets pause a second for those who aren't aware of what relay services are.
Those in our society who have hearing loss can't just pick up the phone and dial their family, friends, or even businesses to communicate directly.
Though many still use TTY Phones (phones that one can type chat room style to someone else that also has a TTY phone) for one on one communications with close ones, but not every friend can afford the $200 plus devices, and nearly no businesses have them. Therefore the government has subsidized relay centers that allow the hearing impaired to call an operator with their TTY phone, type what they need communicated, while the operator acts as an intermediary speaking the message to the hearing person and typing the responses back to the hearing impaired caller. Internet relay simply means they are using a PC and the Internet to contact the relay center instead of a TTY phone.
At this point we have a legitimate service with a potential new customer on the phone. The phone call progresses normally with the operator asking if you are familiar with relay service and will explain the process if you aren't. The caller will inquire about a product that you are likely to sell based on information in the phone book, on the Internet, or some other source.
They will ask for a price and almost never haggle or hesitate in wanting to order from you if you can ship it right away. The bigger the order, the more suspicious you should be. Here is where you can begin to become suspicious. Not many people will be as quick to jump at ordering unless you know you have the absolute lowest price, or unless you have items in hot demand and low supply (recall the Beanie Baby, Cabbage Patch, & TickleMe Elmo crazes). One way to help confirm that you have reason to be cautious is to ask how they found your business. This is also a good process to see if your advertising is working. If they answer that they found you in some place you have never advertised, then there's a good chance you are in a 30 minute waste of your time call at best. Most of these calls have steered away from traditional advertising as their answer and say a friend recommended you. If so try to get them to tell where they are calling from, I'll explain why later.
Many times they will try to convince you to run the credit card while on the phone with them. Often they will ask for your email address so they can send you the purchase order or the credit card to be billed. This would seem harmless, after all who wants the relay operator to have their credit card number. Most of my experience has shown that you won't get the email right away, and they will ask for you to send them an email to verify their account is working. If you haven't already gotten tired of the whole thing by now, and are still holding out for that nice order that might be legitimate, you will quickly find yourself having lost 30 to 45 minutes of your valuable time. If you do get the card information, it will almost always be from a free email service like Yahoo. This is a big flag.
Though personal emails are used quite frequently by professionals that often change companies and wish to maintain their clients, it is rarely used by companies buying large quantities of goods. The story is they are ordering for a remote office (Orlando, Tidewater, Panama City, wherever), so in most cases the credit card won't go through the AVS (address verification system). For those new to, or thinking of taking credit cards, do not call in a manual verification on orders without a credit card in your hand. You may get an approval, but you'll wish you hadn't. Even if you have no problems processing the credit card, if you know how or know someone who can assist you, check the origination of the email. All email has information, not obvious when you are reading it, that can tell you where in the world it came from.
This is where having them tell you they are from Podunk, AZ can be checked with the information in the email. Nearly 90% of these frauds have email originating from Denmark and Amsterdam. If they aren't being truthful about where they were calling from, then you should halt your dealings right there. Even if it is from the US, there's nothing preventing an American con artist from using the relay service as well. Ok lets assume that no red flags have hit yet and you are going to be bamboozled. What happens next? Most likely you would package your goods and ship them off thinking what a lucky break you had and what a good month it will be. However, the end result plays out like this; The remote office is actually a shipping company that will take packages from various sources and consolidate or simply forward them to what they perceive is the final destination.
What actually occurs is there is a daisy chain of shipping companies that the criminal has set up to hide their tracks. In nearly all the investigations I have been a part of, the ultimate destination is out of country to Nigeria. There the daisy chain continues, or the products are dispersed from there. In the end you are out the products you shipped, and in a few weeks or months, you will get contacted by your Merchant Account processor (the ones who help you take the credit cards) for verification of the transaction, and you will have a probability of having the money taken back. This likelihood will increase if you did not follow their processes to the letter. On one case, the caller actually requested the merchant to ship products directly to Nigeria. With the Internet opening the possibilities to go global and shipping companies having a global presence, it would seem easy and tempting to take overseas orders. However, if you knowingly ship to an overseas location and are not in compliance with export laws and regulations you will be facing government fines and prison sentences. As this 2001 headline shows “U.S. fines Boeing $3.8 million for violating export laws” even big companies with lawyers can find themselves on the wrong side of the export laws. If in doubt, check with your attorney.
If you or someone you know ends up becoming a victim of this scam, You will need to contact both the FBI and the Secret Service. Yeah, the same service that protects the President also investigates the overseas portion of the fraud. Both the stolen credit card number and the fact that products end up over seas is in the jurisdiction of the Secret Service, whereas the domestic use of email to defraud is handled by the FBI.
So the next time your phone rings, take heed to the adage that something that seems to good to be true, is just that, Mr. Tugud Tobetrue. However, lets not refuse to take the relay calls just because criminals are abusing the system. We shouldn't get rid of disabled parking spaces just because some healthy inconsiderate person parks in the space, and we can't turn our backs on doing business with the hearing impaired because some overseas credit card scammer wants to waste our time or steal from us. |
