Of thieving scammers and stupidity

[Canarr]

I was wondering the same thing... why not go for something you can actually use? Electronics, would come to mind.

I can't imagine it'd be easy to unload 10-20 copies of the same Law textbook...

[Aethian]

Notice they are using UPS so it's not mail fraud.

[csquared]

just out of curiousity....why go through all this effort for textbooks? Is the resell value that high?

$162 dollars retail, Lupo said you could find it for half on ebay. So you can probably sell them for $60 each. Or maybe they are the ones selling them in ebay for $80.

Buying them on a stolen Credit Card, it is all profit. And I will bet that they are buying them after they get the order for them.

Judging by what Lupo said about how extensive it is, they have probably made several thousands in profit... This semester.

I can't imagine it'd be easy to unload 10-20 copies of the same Law textbook...

The textbook is required. You probably have 100 students who need to buy it, each semester, at one university. Put an add in Craig's List and you will probably get 20 takers, from one university.

Now multiple that by the number of universities that require that text.

Lupo,
How many copies of that text to you usually sell at your store?

[lupo pazzesco]

$162 dollars retail, Lupo said you could find it for half on ebay. So you can probably sell them for $60 each. Or maybe they are the ones selling them in ebay for $80.

Buying them on a stolen Credit Card, it is all profit. And I will bet that they are buying them after they get the order for them.

Judging by what Lupo said about how extensive it is, they have probably made several thousands in profit... This semester.

<snip>

Lupo,
How many copies of that text to you usually sell at your store?

Hit all the major points for me, thanks!!


And in answer to your question, we've sold, for the school use, about 50 copies of the Business Law book. Also, the other books that these scammers are trying to get out of us include a basic biology book ($ used for ALL sections of basic Bio, of $148 retail)which we've sold, at lats count, 169 copies of this semester alone. They're also trying for a financial accounting book ($136 retail) and a another accounting book, involving individual taxation, I think ($140 retail)

In the last 2 days I've gotten 3 more orders, all either under fraudulent names/addresses from the list I've compiled. They're starting to try and be a little more clever. For example, one order we've had listed a NY address belonging to someone we'll call "Gregory Jacobson". Today, I received another order with a ship to address of NY, but the receiver is listed as "Greg Jacobs", with all the same ship to info as the first order.

Oh, and it turns out all of these addresses that aren't big warehouses are actually homes of senior citizens, and one of them was the man who called to yell at us for sending him books, and complain about how borked our computer system was. So, multiple scams going on, scamming my company and business, and scamming senior citizens, to get them to mail books to unknown addresses for the thieves' benefit.

We're talking to our regional supervisor, to see if there's a way to suspend web ordering of books right now, because we're getting new orders everyday. And I'm kind of scared that on my days off, my CWs who handle these things, being the lazy twatpumpkins they are, will just ship like crazy and process alllll the orders just to get the job done. Idiots. Not really much else we can do, because there's just no way to find out who these people are, at least not that I'm capable of doing. It's been lobbed over to corporate LP and it's in their hands.

So far, 5 calls from various VISA company's wanting chargebacks for fraudulent orders. I think that's all the ones we mistakenly shipped before we caught on, but I'm up to 20 false orders placed in the last 2 weeks or so, which at this point if it isn't a Houston, TX address we're pretty much canceling all textbook orders that come in via our website. We figure it's better to wait and get called from legitimate customers asking why we canceled, than help the thieves.

[sprocket79]

Wow... good job! I caught a software pirate at my job once. He was buying discs of our software, but not the license to go with it. He did a lot of the same things - he would use a few different names and go to the same few physical addresses, email address, or phone numbers. I just connected the dots, went online and through the magic of Google, I found his online store where he was reselling our software at a fraction of the cost. I sent all the info to our fraud team, who then took it over. I'm still wondering if I should send in an anonymous tip to the IRS. I think they would hurt the pirate more than a piracy conviction. You don't mess with the IRS.

[Andara Bledin]

Not like we can call and report them to local authorities, nor can we call Joliet, IL and say "hey, you got some textbook thieves that are committing ID theft and fraud that might be based in your town".

Actually, yes, yes you can do just that.

We had some punks pulling that scam with us through eBay and our website. But they were doing a standard same name/same address but 20 different credit card accounts routine.

Since we're a fairly small company, it was caught rather quickly, but not before they made off with about $800 in product before we stopped the additional $1500+ going out the door.

We contacted the attorney general for the state to get the investigation started.

Notice they are using UPS so it's not mail fraud.

Per FTC regulations, any form of shipped product falls under the heading of mail fraud.

I can track down the relevant info if necessary, but it's all been unified to streamline investigation and prosecution.

^-.-^

[Dips]

I'm still wondering if I should send in an anonymous tip to the IRS. I think they would hurt the pirate more than a piracy conviction. You don't mess with the IRS.

Oooh, that's just terrible. I love it!

I also work for a software manufacturer.

Back on topic, if you're a national chain the theives might also try returning the books to the a local store for cash (without a receipt). Anybody who returns *those* books should be ID'd and the information turned over to LP.

I'm sure LP is checking craigslist, etc. for anyone selling those books.

I'm sure it will take time but I have a feeling it will work out and the thieves will get greedy and get caught.

Mr. Dips' boss got a scammer arrested and prosecuted because the scammer was too stupid to just hit him once and move on. The second time he tried the scam, the police were waiting for him when he went to the post office to get his goods. These guys seem to be that stupid.

[cinema guy]

We had some punks pulling that scam with us through eBay and our website. But they were doing a standard same name/same address but 20 different credit card accounts routine.

Does your company lose out from payments on stolen/fraudulent cards?

Or is the card company that takes the loss?

[Magpie]

Back on topic, if you're a national chain the theives might also try returning the books to the a local store for cash (without a receipt). Anybody who returns *those* books should be ID'd and the information turned over to LP.

Fortunately textbook stores tend to be incredibly paranoid about returns requiring a receipt. Given the nature of the business they'd get far too many returns otherwise. (People buying the books until midterms when they drop the course/decide that they can get by with the library copy, and then "lose" their receipt to hide the fact that they're past the return-by date). Actually the store at my school won't accept books for return after a certain date in the course, no matter what.

[Andara Bledin]

Does your company lose out from payments on stolen/fraudulent cards?

Or is the card company that takes the loss?

We take the hit, unfortunately.

It can be written off to bad debt, of course, but it's still an ugly blot on the books.

^-.-^

[Jetfire]

Plus the more times a company has Charge Backs done to it, the more that company's reputation with the CC companies is tarnished, which can raise the CC rates the company needs to pay, and/or can mean legitamate people who use those credit cards may have their purchases declined (because the company was flagged as a fraud-supplier).

A few years back, SOE (Makers of Everquest and related MMO's) was hit hard due to the plat sellers using stolen cards to buy accounts, spam with those accounts, and when the account was banned, get a charge back from the CC company. From what I heard (2nd and 3rd hand from various sources of course), the fees and lost revenue was skyrocketing, plus normal people started finding their cards declined because their bank/CC company refused to deal with SOE.

[taxguykarl]

I'm still wondering if I should send in an anonymous tip to the IRS. I think they would hurt the pirate more than a piracy conviction. You don't mess with the IRS.

Here's the info you need for that. The IRS prefers names...too many anonymous cranks-but don't worry, your tip is kept as confidential as your return.
Just keep in mind that the reward for the tip is taxable. Set aside the funds if nothing is withheld.

[cinema guy]

We take the hit, unfortunately.

That sucks.

I didn't know who lost out. Thanks.

[Andara Bledin]

That sucks.

I didn't know who lost out. Thanks.

Oh, it's even better. Not only do we lose the money that was charged fraudulently, but we also get hit with a chargeback fee.

Fun times.

And, yet, even with everything we lose to fraud and fees, the notable additional business we do via credit card easily pays for itself in the end.

^-.-^

[wolfie]

I once saw (on eBay) someone selling (what I assumed to be) stolen product from a former employer (manufacturer of computer hardware). The next business day, I called the main reception desk (it had been a couple years since I left the company when this happened), asked for the legal department, and gave them the info (general description along with the eBay auction number) and why I thought the goods were stolen.

1. The items were described as pre-production hardware. From my time with the company, we never sold that - it was only for internal use.
2. If the whole company operated the same way my (former) department did, pre-production goods would be incredibly easy to steal with nobody noticing.

Why would this be the case? Simple - each revision of the driver would be tested on all production versions of the hardware, and any pre-production versions which were newer than the latest production version. Once a particular pre-production version was superceded, either by a production version or a newer pre-production version, we'd never look for it again when testing a new version of the driver, so the only sign it was missing would be the "drawer 'o cards for test purposes" not being as jam-packed as it usually was.

Don't know what the resolution was, but if the goods were as advertised it was almost certainly an inside job, and I hope the perp wound up fired and in jail.