Thursday, July 3, 2008

Scam, Bam, Thank you Mam!

I have been selling online for almost 10 years so my red flag goes up pretty easy.
But I had to admit that this latest "scammer" had me going for a few emails.
(Only because I do sell overseas and I do have large orders from time to time).

I have a website. It has a shopping cart. International shipping prices are given.

I recieved an email. A person wanted me to ship to another country using their shipping agent. I said no (red flag raised slightly).

A few days later they emailed me wanting 20 items, 5 of each of 4 styles. All of my pieces are one of a kind. I wrote them explaining that. It seemed almost like they did not read my site.

They write back telling me to charge their 2 cards for all of the items. They gave me to credit card numbers IN EMAIL (not secure) with ALL of the card info. 3 digit secutity code, expiration dates, address, etc. I am baffled, what items? I told them I do not have what they want. (Now my red flag is flying high!)

I call a friend and he tells me to google their name and billing address in quotes. I do and the first site that pops up is

Mr. Pinball's list of scammers!


There is my scammer, right on the list!
I called the credit card company and reported both cards as possible fraud.
The info given on the cards did not match so the fraud department was alerted.

I placed a call to Mr. Pinball (who runs the scammer site) and he was super nice. I just wanted to thank him for posting this list. I now have the site bookmarked.

be careful everyone!

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