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One of my "hobbies" at work is catching scammers in the act. There is a small group of unrelated people who run a similar scam. If a store calls to make a store referral order for a customer and the store price is lower, we override our price to match the store price. When the stores call they are supposed to hit an option not mentioned in our phone tree (a silent prompt) if this is done the call comes up on our phones as a store referral. Of course the stores almost NEVER do this (corporate tried to crack down on it hard a few years back) so store calls and customer calls look the same on the phone most of the time. Most of us are quite good at recognizing what the stores sound like so if we think its a store we are and we are usually right. With that background info out of the way this will make sense.
Our lovely group of scammers. They will call pretending to be a store (per policy we MUST always honor what the store says without question) and claim items are at unrealistic prices. I've had to sell a $17 item for $1.99 and give free 2nd days shipping due to this crap. After I place these orders, I'll forward the order to a supervisor asking them to forward to corporate. Usually nothing is done :-( The small group I recognize by name I'll forward every time. So after about 3 times of them pulling the stunt, corporate will set it up where their orders get drastically delayed but they still go through eventually. Some of these scammers evolved from doing the same scam backwards, they would claim they saw the item at a store cheaper so could we call the store verify and match it (yes we can). Being the cynic I am I always would look up the number on our website and call the store, these scammers would be all like "hey I can save you some time I have the store number" I'd get it from them, put them on hold call the real store and verify the prices were the same or higher than what I have online. I'd give the other number to corporate who would call at random times and *gasp* get cellphone voicemail (the stores all have landlines and they cannot use employees personal cellphones). Still these people just end up getting future orders delayed.
Well the one I dealt with last night. I've placed one of his orders in the past (the $1.99 item) and after placing that one I found 4 other orders where he did the same thing. A few weeks later a coworker had someone in the same city doing the same thing. I told him I thought it was the same guy using a new identity (he alway pays with giftcards). Sure enough a few days later another order with the new name but the old email address. So tallying it up he has 8 orders with wrong prices (for example two $50 items for $9 each that type of thing). Last time I spoke with him he was so mean and forceful with me (he was pretending to be a store manager (the store has since called advising us of him) and kept mentioning corporate at random times just to scare me).
Well last night I get a call from a sweet kid. He says his mom placed an order at the store for him and he got an email mentioning a computer error. I pull up the order and sure enough I have to cancel it and replace it with a new order. I recognize the address as the scammer so I just kinda play along, he is being nice to me I'm being nice to him. There are price matches but they are typical ($20 item for $15, $45 for $30) pretty normal for our stores (they have to get rid of inventory unlike us at the online store). At the end of the order he mentions he has two other gift cards for a couple bucks each he'd like to also apply. We can only use one gift card at a time, but I can send the order off to our gift card department who will turn the gift cards into one new gift card and then place the order. The gift card department is one step down the food chain from corporate. So I let him know how it works he agrees and I get the other gift card numbers. While he is taking forever (ok by me) he kept apologizing for the delay (I don't mind really). I search for orders using the two gift card numbers he just gave me. JACKPOT!!! they pull up 6 of his scammy orders. So I finish up send the order to the gift card department with a brief note saying they should call the store to verify all prices see order history by gift cards 2 and 3. Since the order really isn't placed yet, they can verify the prices and if they are wrong call the customer advising him we can place the order if her wishes at the regular prices and he would need some method to pay the remainder (he saved around $40 with his price matches).
I feel kinda bad that I did that even when he was an absolute pleasure to speak to this time. I just hate scamming. It seems like he might have even already redeemed himself (they could be real store prices this time). Did I do right?
Our lovely group of scammers. They will call pretending to be a store (per policy we MUST always honor what the store says without question) and claim items are at unrealistic prices. I've had to sell a $17 item for $1.99 and give free 2nd days shipping due to this crap. After I place these orders, I'll forward the order to a supervisor asking them to forward to corporate. Usually nothing is done :-( The small group I recognize by name I'll forward every time. So after about 3 times of them pulling the stunt, corporate will set it up where their orders get drastically delayed but they still go through eventually. Some of these scammers evolved from doing the same scam backwards, they would claim they saw the item at a store cheaper so could we call the store verify and match it (yes we can). Being the cynic I am I always would look up the number on our website and call the store, these scammers would be all like "hey I can save you some time I have the store number" I'd get it from them, put them on hold call the real store and verify the prices were the same or higher than what I have online. I'd give the other number to corporate who would call at random times and *gasp* get cellphone voicemail (the stores all have landlines and they cannot use employees personal cellphones). Still these people just end up getting future orders delayed.
Well the one I dealt with last night. I've placed one of his orders in the past (the $1.99 item) and after placing that one I found 4 other orders where he did the same thing. A few weeks later a coworker had someone in the same city doing the same thing. I told him I thought it was the same guy using a new identity (he alway pays with giftcards). Sure enough a few days later another order with the new name but the old email address. So tallying it up he has 8 orders with wrong prices (for example two $50 items for $9 each that type of thing). Last time I spoke with him he was so mean and forceful with me (he was pretending to be a store manager (the store has since called advising us of him) and kept mentioning corporate at random times just to scare me).
Well last night I get a call from a sweet kid. He says his mom placed an order at the store for him and he got an email mentioning a computer error. I pull up the order and sure enough I have to cancel it and replace it with a new order. I recognize the address as the scammer so I just kinda play along, he is being nice to me I'm being nice to him. There are price matches but they are typical ($20 item for $15, $45 for $30) pretty normal for our stores (they have to get rid of inventory unlike us at the online store). At the end of the order he mentions he has two other gift cards for a couple bucks each he'd like to also apply. We can only use one gift card at a time, but I can send the order off to our gift card department who will turn the gift cards into one new gift card and then place the order. The gift card department is one step down the food chain from corporate. So I let him know how it works he agrees and I get the other gift card numbers. While he is taking forever (ok by me) he kept apologizing for the delay (I don't mind really). I search for orders using the two gift card numbers he just gave me. JACKPOT!!! they pull up 6 of his scammy orders. So I finish up send the order to the gift card department with a brief note saying they should call the store to verify all prices see order history by gift cards 2 and 3. Since the order really isn't placed yet, they can verify the prices and if they are wrong call the customer advising him we can place the order if her wishes at the regular prices and he would need some method to pay the remainder (he saved around $40 with his price matches).
I feel kinda bad that I did that even when he was an absolute pleasure to speak to this time. I just hate scamming. It seems like he might have even already redeemed himself (they could be real store prices this time). Did I do right?
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