Did just kill a $17,000 deal?

[harryball]

OK, I come here sometimes to lament and lick wounds or just rant. If you're up for that keep reading.

Out of the blue, we had an out of country company (Australia based) contact us to purchase 100 Four chamber bat houses. The representative just said they found us online and liked our website. This is odd, they are generally referred by some other organization and we like to give a little something back, but OK, they tripped over us.

This is not the first time we've done orders like this one shipping out of the country using a freight forwarder and this is also not the biggest order we've ever put together. But it is odd in other ways.

1) Like I said, the guy "found" us online and just out of the blue decided we're great and wants to order 100 bat houses.

2) He is difficult to reach. So yeah, he is in Australia but he is really too difficult to reach and his U.S. number (which is IP based) does not have a message on it associated with "his" company.

3) He gave us his Freight Forwarders information and they are based in London. Has a website and everything, but is hard to reach them except HIS contact he gave us via email of which his domain name doesn't match the website. I've never dealt with a Forwarder was not U.S. based or had a U.S. office.

4) We requested a quote for the shipping and it was returned extremely FAST. Maybe he has all this on file, but that was the fastest anyone figured out all the harmonized codes, taxes/tariffs etc... and returned a quote.

5) We need to pay the shipper so the buyer can just pay us once using his U.S. credit card. We've done this maybe a half dozen times and we have never been asked to pay the freight forwarder. The customer always hold that relationship and we either ship to the forwarder or schedule with the forwarder to pick up.

6) The Freight Forwarder sent payment instructions... you guessed it, Wire transfer or ACH ONLY, no checks, no CC.

7) Despite my best effort, I can't prove either of these companies are legit... but I can't prove they are not either. Big companies and this company is massive, are difficult to nail down who actually works there and that is compounded when it's overseas. There is a guy that works there by that name but you can't reach him, he's a field operative and unless he reaches out to you there is no public contact and they can't release his information.

So... you want to buy 100 bat houses from me and pay $23,000 on CC then I wire $6000 out of the country and hope the guy shows up to pick up the bat houses and you don't cancel the order?

I sent an email (cause nobody answers a phone) and told them I would be glad to have the bat houses ready to ship but they would need to pay the shipper directly. Call with the payment when you are ready... and I'm still waiting.

There are so many ways I can imagine this could go wrong but basically: They pay, I pay shipper via wire xfer, CC then turns out stolen or they simply cancel the order or whatever, either way I'm out $6000 that went out of the country. These could be well engineered pseudo companies with just enough truth in them to make someone who wanted it to be true overlook all the red flags.

Something just don't seem right.

As much as I'd love a "Christmas Bonus" I'm figuring if he's not willing to make the order and pay the shipper directly... there was no order in the first place.

Anyway, thanks for listening and be careful out there.

[Davo]

Seems there wasn't a deal to kill

Only money to lose on a fake shipping company

Did you try a reverse ip off the email header information, the X-originating ip

[harryball]

You got me thinking Davo, I think I just cracked it... the "company man" has a gmail account (of course) but the shipper has an email from qualityservice.com but states "QualityServices.com" in the email for the shipping company which of course has another name that points to a maybe legit, maybe not legit website. Now, that is subtle and when I did my checking I checked out qualityservices.com, my mind overlooking the missing "s" in the email address. Even the reverse lookups from the email seemed to check out because my mind overlooked the missing "s" again. So forward/reverse, in fact, is OK, just not for the domain I thought I was checking up on.

While the website at www.qualityservices.com didn't seem to make sense, it doesn't not make sense either depending on how all the corporations have relationships. But... if you correct the missing "s" it's obvious I won't be hearing back from anyone.

In a way I do feel better but it does just make me want to find someone and... well lets just say weedeaters, fire ants, axes and backhoes would be involved.

[knight_toolworks]

how was the English I have gotten such things and the lack of correct English or what they want is so odd. it sounds like a scam.

[Brady Watson]

$6k is a drop in the bucket compared to $17k...Stolen card, out of country business, CC processors wanted their loot. No joke.

Spidey sense be tinglin': If there's any doubt, there is no doubt. (https://youtu.be/0hnhvWKMqm4?t=26s)

It's cash & carry. I get the cash. You get to carry the stuff away.

Cleared wire transfer, including shipping fees, before it ships. End of story.

Ever buy a tool from ShopBot? It's paid in full or it doesn't ship. It doesn't even go into production until you drop a certain percentage to prove your intentions.

If they want the goods, they'll pay. If YOU want something bad enough, YOU would jump through whatever hoops you had to in order to make it happen. They can do the same as well.

-B

[JimDav]

HAS to be a scam. As soon as you said Australia my BIG red flag went up. I have friends in Australia and wanted to send some of my items to them. Australian customs has VERY strict rules on importing wood in any manner into the country. I suspect wood bat houses would meet their demise at customs very quickly!

[myxpykalix]

Sounds to me like you'd have better luck if you accepted the million dollar bank transfer from that Nigerian prince.
Ask yourself...is there not ONE company is Australia that could make bat house and save the hassle of the shipping and duty fees, ect? Any company that requires YOU to pay for some fee/service in order to do business with them is a scam in my book.

I have shipped to Australia before and the paperwork, customs, shippers and all fees essentially doubled the cost of the machinery i was sending. So doesn't common sense tell ask you.."why would this guy be willing to pay double for goods?

Unless the guy is willing to pay upfront for your goods and shipping i'd say walk away. That is what i required my buyer to do and the trust factor and risk is on them, not you.
If you do this and get screwed, i'll be the first one to say..."I told you so!" lol
You are lucky you have so many "big brothers" to give you good advice...now take it...
Good Luck Harry

After reading JimDav post it reminded me that i had to take my shipping container back and reconstruct it with wood that was clearly marked where it was heat treated to kill any bugs. Not sure whether plywood you use would go thru that treatment.

[rb99]

I was looking at buying a large format laminator from China, and at no time were they prepared to send a check to pay for my shipping...

[curtiss]

As Robin might say.... “Holy Freight Forwarder scam Batman...”

[harryball]

They have the scam down to a science and it bugs me that someone out there will fall for it.

The guy my wife did speak too had perfect English and seemed sincere. While the details seemed a bit odd I didn't give it much thought as I figured it wasn't going anywhere anyway, we quote stuff all the time. When they "accepted' the quote it wasn't until I saw the "requirement to pay shipper via wire transfer or ACH" that I said "uhh... no way that's happening" and dug into it to see what was going on. That's when I figured there was a 95% chance it was a scam, but to give the benefit of the doubt I kept it civil and told them they need to pay the shipper. I doubt we hear back.

The freight forwarder is responsible for knowing the shipping/custom/tax requirements etc... When we sent the specs and descriptions to him, that's why I was suspicious when they responded the same day. I know Australia customs is very strict and detailed. I wasn't expecting a response for at least a week and told my wife then that they may tell us it can't be done. I did specify no natural wood was present and disclosed the materials used with country of origin to help with the harmonized codes.

Any way, all part of doing business.

[knight_toolworks]

don't worry your info has been sold 1,000,000 now so you did your part :cool:

[feinddj]

In this case, better safe than sorry. They should pay for and arrange shipping. On the other side of this, no deposit, no work. With people I have no history with, and some with whom I have too much, I require a deposit for materials and the work doesn't leave the shop until paid in full. You don't get to go to Home Depot and leave without paying. Why should it be different for us?

[Bob Eustace]

HAS to be a scam. As soon as you said Australia my BIG red flag went up. I have friends in Australia and wanted to send some of my items to them. Australian customs has VERY strict rules on importing wood in any manner into the country. I suspect wood bat houses would meet their demise at customs very quickly!

Plywood is usually exempt Jim.

[cr2]

I have gotten international requests for large orders like this. Notice that if you stop responding, they don't bug you...they just move on to the next sucker. A real customer would write again.

[dlcw]

I've gotten many of these over the years. They are normally scams. I've never seen a valid one. Don't click on any links or you could have your computer infected. When you get these, just add them to your SPAM list as blocked senders.

[harryball]

I've gotten many of these over the years. They are normally scams. I've never seen a valid one. Don't click on any links or you could have your computer infected. When you get these, just add them to your SPAM list as blocked senders.

This was not your typical email scam. This guy called on our business line with a good cover story and even discussed bats. This was well crafted and carefully executed and save the fact there is no way in heck I would wire money out of the country... or anywhere for that matter he could have pulled it off. I have HIGH standards when money leaves me and those stopped the scam in its tracks.

Overall, I'm impressed with the amount of work he (or they) put into this. I'm sure they do this with many other companies and they are still doing it because it pays, which is sad. Technically this would be a phone scam as that's how it started only going to email once the relationship was established.

No real harm done to us... but again, it makes me angry to think their scam does pay off. :mad: Some Mom & Pop trying to make it getting scammed out of $100, $1000 or $10,000 on the promise of a large purchase.

If you ever see a news story where "bat man" goes berserk and beats a guy to death with a bat house... you'll know I found him. :rolleyes:

[JimDav]

Plywood is usually exempt Jim.
That might be good to know as I use almost exclusively Baltic Birch. Guess I didn't check deep enough into customs requirements. Did talk to some Australians and reviewed the Customs site quickly. Thanks.

[donek]

I get at least 2 dummy purchase attempts a year. They are usually for a large quantity of an obscure item we never sell a large volume of and the requests always come from an anonymous google account. When I press for company name, resale license, or anything that would confirm that they are a legitimate business they can't provide it. They typically want to send an unknown shipping company to my place of business to pick up the items. As attractive as the order seems, I simply won't do business with someone or a company I can't readily identify. Overseas shipments have to be vetted by a terror watch list of some sort (sorry my wife works with that stuff) so dealing with a shady company can put yours in dire straights with the Federal government. Don't bother.

I've often wondered if it actually is a Government official testing our international business practices. There are always big red flags. Trust your gut.

[stump]

You didn't kill a $17,000 deal, you saved $6,000. :D Sad thing is that you are right about some others falling for this scam and other variations of it.

[80grit]

I first experienced a scammer years ago when I was selling some sleigh beds online. It started with a call from a service that deaf people use to communicate over the phone. I didn't even know existed. We started emailing, and the red flags went up everywhere. I kept asking specific questions about mattress size and such as a test, and they would never address my questions. I checked the IP address, and the person was in Africa.

Part of me want to tell them off, but I knew they wouldn't care. I figure the only thing I could do was to let them think they had me and then drag it on as long as possible and use their time and resources sending me checks and writing emails.

I don't think I've even sold anything online and not had to deal with a scammer at some point.