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Of thieving scammers and stupidity
Ok, this is kind of long, but bear with me here. I'm putting this in sucky customers because these people have successfully bought from us before we caught on, sadly enough. Still kicking myself for it.
Our store allows for online orders, we ship nationwide. Why? Because there are University alumni all over the place, who just have to have their shiny new bumper stickers or spiffy red t-shirts. We also do online book orders, for those who may be out of town during break between semesters and want to have their books waiting at home when they get back. Makes sense.
I am slated to take over shipping/receiving and go full time come April, and as such, have spent the last several weeks learning the ins and outs of the job, which is mostly what I've BEEN doing, but I'm learning the finer points. As such, I've taken over all online web orders, and book orders through our Monsoon system. The web order system is a completely different one that goes straight through the store.
In the last 2 weeks, I've noticed that one particular title has been being bought a lot online, it retails for $162 used, and the shipping is requested UPS 2nd day air, which generally brings the total charge to $200 or thereabouts. Now, on one Friday when I wasn't at work, 2 orders came in for the book, and they were promptly charged and shipped out. When I returned on Sunday, I saw 4 orders for the same book and thought it weird that the same book was being ordered and being sent to Indiana, Illinois and North Carolina. Two of the totals matched up at $198.41. Weird, and alarm bells starting to go off.
Monday morning, I arrived and there was yet ANOTHER order for this textbook, slated to go to....Illinois. Huh. Weird. I pull the order, look up the customer's name and it's the same woman's name from the day before, and hey, look. She's ordered TWICE before and snatched the same book title. I go into tender info, and find out there are 3 different VISAs charged (the last 4 digits are different, which is all we're allowed to see through our system.) I flag the order, then proceed to pull up all sales of this book in the last week.
While I'm in the middle of that the phone rings and I answer it. A woman asks what kind of store we are and I tell her. She explains that she lives in Illinois, and there is a charge on her card for $198.41, and she has no idea how that got there or why.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Suspicions confirmed! We have a textbook ID theft ring. I walk her through how to get her CC company to call us and flag it, so she can get the chargeback, and then I dive headfirst into our web order system. I found all instances of that book, and found it was shipped to 3 main addresses. One in Joliet, Illinois, one in Indiana (can't remember the city), and one in Princeton, North Carolina. I also found one of the purchasers was listed as John Doe, but was shipped to Smith Jane. I went back and found 3 other orders where John Doe was listed as purchaser, but they books were shipped to Smith John, and Doe Jane, etc. These addresses were in Florida, New York, and another Indiana address, respectively.
I pull all the info and compile it. While one book as proven to be the main draw, I saw some of these names that keep popping up are ordering DIFFERENT books, and shipping them to the same address with different names. I bring all this to the attention of the store manager, showing how Person A at Address A is ordering the same books as Person B, but it's also shipped to Address A. Also, Address B is buying books with different CCs and shipping to the same place with 3 different names.
In summation, there were 18 different orders: 9 for Book A, 3 for Book B, 3 for Book C, and 3 for Book D, all of which totaled $200 minimum. There were also only 5 names listed as ship to addresses, repeated several times, while the purchasing names were different. The number of credit cards used were different, I think about 15 cards total. Store manager was impressed I caught it, but we had already shipped out about 6 different orders, and upon tracking them, they had been signed and received by one person, a completely different name than any of those I had seen.
Store manager emails one of our regional supers, explaining what I'd found and he took over from there. Few days later an email from corporate went out, explaining how there was a country wide ring of people who were placing fraudulent orders to stores from all over the US inside our company. They included a list of names compiled from said orders. The list matched each and every name I'd found, but didn't include others I had flagged.
Where does the stupidity part come in? Last week, my textbook manager took a phone call from an irate man. Irate man demanded we stop sending him books he never ordered! Turns out, his was one of the ship to addresses with all the different names listed. Initially, my managers were excited because hey, he has our books! We'll send him labels and he can ship them back, right? Merchandise recovered!
Not quite.
No, see, he decided to wait to call us because after a few weeks of receiving books he received a letter with no return address, but with a shipping label, which asked him to box up the books he had received and send them to yet another address. Rather than think anything is suspicious about this, he does so. And then proceeds to call us to harangue us about how stupid WE are for not sending them to a correct address in the first place.
...
So, Textbook manager took down all of his information, promised we'd never ship a book to his address again, and tried to find out what address the books had gone to. Guy didn't know. He put them in a box, slapped the label on and said good riddance. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you one of the people who falls for the Nigerian scams, warranty scams, and governmental money giveaway scams.
Seriously? You get an unmarked, unsigned letter asking you to send hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks to a random place that you have no knowledge of, and don't find this the least bit shady?
I wept for humanity when I'd heard that. A lot.
We're still getting orders under different names, but same addresses, so we cancel them, and send the info along to corporate. All we can do. I'm frustrated and pissed because I want to shut these people down, and I get the feeling that in the coming weeks and months, we're going to be getting a lot of phone calls from ID Theft victims and their CC companies.
The end.
Our store allows for online orders, we ship nationwide. Why? Because there are University alumni all over the place, who just have to have their shiny new bumper stickers or spiffy red t-shirts. We also do online book orders, for those who may be out of town during break between semesters and want to have their books waiting at home when they get back. Makes sense.
I am slated to take over shipping/receiving and go full time come April, and as such, have spent the last several weeks learning the ins and outs of the job, which is mostly what I've BEEN doing, but I'm learning the finer points. As such, I've taken over all online web orders, and book orders through our Monsoon system. The web order system is a completely different one that goes straight through the store.
In the last 2 weeks, I've noticed that one particular title has been being bought a lot online, it retails for $162 used, and the shipping is requested UPS 2nd day air, which generally brings the total charge to $200 or thereabouts. Now, on one Friday when I wasn't at work, 2 orders came in for the book, and they were promptly charged and shipped out. When I returned on Sunday, I saw 4 orders for the same book and thought it weird that the same book was being ordered and being sent to Indiana, Illinois and North Carolina. Two of the totals matched up at $198.41. Weird, and alarm bells starting to go off.
Monday morning, I arrived and there was yet ANOTHER order for this textbook, slated to go to....Illinois. Huh. Weird. I pull the order, look up the customer's name and it's the same woman's name from the day before, and hey, look. She's ordered TWICE before and snatched the same book title. I go into tender info, and find out there are 3 different VISAs charged (the last 4 digits are different, which is all we're allowed to see through our system.) I flag the order, then proceed to pull up all sales of this book in the last week.
While I'm in the middle of that the phone rings and I answer it. A woman asks what kind of store we are and I tell her. She explains that she lives in Illinois, and there is a charge on her card for $198.41, and she has no idea how that got there or why.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Suspicions confirmed! We have a textbook ID theft ring. I walk her through how to get her CC company to call us and flag it, so she can get the chargeback, and then I dive headfirst into our web order system. I found all instances of that book, and found it was shipped to 3 main addresses. One in Joliet, Illinois, one in Indiana (can't remember the city), and one in Princeton, North Carolina. I also found one of the purchasers was listed as John Doe, but was shipped to Smith Jane. I went back and found 3 other orders where John Doe was listed as purchaser, but they books were shipped to Smith John, and Doe Jane, etc. These addresses were in Florida, New York, and another Indiana address, respectively.
I pull all the info and compile it. While one book as proven to be the main draw, I saw some of these names that keep popping up are ordering DIFFERENT books, and shipping them to the same address with different names. I bring all this to the attention of the store manager, showing how Person A at Address A is ordering the same books as Person B, but it's also shipped to Address A. Also, Address B is buying books with different CCs and shipping to the same place with 3 different names.
In summation, there were 18 different orders: 9 for Book A, 3 for Book B, 3 for Book C, and 3 for Book D, all of which totaled $200 minimum. There were also only 5 names listed as ship to addresses, repeated several times, while the purchasing names were different. The number of credit cards used were different, I think about 15 cards total. Store manager was impressed I caught it, but we had already shipped out about 6 different orders, and upon tracking them, they had been signed and received by one person, a completely different name than any of those I had seen.
Store manager emails one of our regional supers, explaining what I'd found and he took over from there. Few days later an email from corporate went out, explaining how there was a country wide ring of people who were placing fraudulent orders to stores from all over the US inside our company. They included a list of names compiled from said orders. The list matched each and every name I'd found, but didn't include others I had flagged.
Where does the stupidity part come in? Last week, my textbook manager took a phone call from an irate man. Irate man demanded we stop sending him books he never ordered! Turns out, his was one of the ship to addresses with all the different names listed. Initially, my managers were excited because hey, he has our books! We'll send him labels and he can ship them back, right? Merchandise recovered!
Not quite.
No, see, he decided to wait to call us because after a few weeks of receiving books he received a letter with no return address, but with a shipping label, which asked him to box up the books he had received and send them to yet another address. Rather than think anything is suspicious about this, he does so. And then proceeds to call us to harangue us about how stupid WE are for not sending them to a correct address in the first place.
...
So, Textbook manager took down all of his information, promised we'd never ship a book to his address again, and tried to find out what address the books had gone to. Guy didn't know. He put them in a box, slapped the label on and said good riddance. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you one of the people who falls for the Nigerian scams, warranty scams, and governmental money giveaway scams.
Seriously? You get an unmarked, unsigned letter asking you to send hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks to a random place that you have no knowledge of, and don't find this the least bit shady?
I wept for humanity when I'd heard that. A lot.
We're still getting orders under different names, but same addresses, so we cancel them, and send the info along to corporate. All we can do. I'm frustrated and pissed because I want to shut these people down, and I get the feeling that in the coming weeks and months, we're going to be getting a lot of phone calls from ID Theft victims and their CC companies.
The end.
I AM the evil bastard!
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