I’ve been the victim of a very sick scam. I really don’t understand why or what. But I wanted to share it with you so you can be wary, in case it happens to you.
Middle of July a new affiliate signed up. Nothing unusual about that. I get affiliates signing up with my site regularly. However, this affiliate began generating a lot of sales quite quickly. The first I knew of it was when I suddenly started getting orders for my book “Worth More Than Rubies”. I sell copies here and there, but never usually a lot in a short time period. I checked the sales records online and found they were coming via this new affiliate so I contacted them to find out what they were doing. They advised they were promoting via Facebook and Twitter (actually they said they were spamming and I told them that’s not what they should be doing but I assumed they were joking). I contacted several of the purchasers just to confirm the order – I wanted to make sure all was above board. They each responded thank you and looking forward to getting my book.
This took place for a fortnight and I dutifully purchased postpaks, overseas postage (because most of the orders were overseas) and sent the books off. Then early last week a lady contacted me to find out why I’d sent her my book with a payment slip. She hadn’t ordered it at all and the email address on the slip was not hers. I got contacted two days later by another with a similar story. I contacted my payment gateway and the fraud dept of my merchant bank and they began to investigate. Yes, a number of the orders placed over the past fortnight were fraudulent.
I’m now going through the process of having to refund the fees I’ve received and asking for the books to be sent back, but I understand if people don’t want to do that. I’m out of pocket for merchant fees, postpaks, overseas and local postage, plus the refund fees I now have to pay refunding everyone. Because I can’t be sure that all the purchases in the past fortnight were fraudulent (I know some weren’t) I’ve written a letter to everyone outlining what has taken place and what they need to do. I’ve also requested they don’t get their bank to do a chargeback as I get charged $25.00 per chargeback for something I didn’t do. That will double the amount of money I’ll have to pay back!
I know that everyone whose cards were used are victims in this – the cards were stolen, and I am also a victim in this. It seems a very mean thing to do. And I don’t understand what the perpetrators get from it – ordering something they’re not going to receive using stolen credit cards? The fraud dept guy told me that they’re most likely testing the cards with small purchases before making larger ones for things they want to get.
Whatever’s going on, I’m not alone. I get my shopping delivered by Coles fortnightly and the delivery guy told me last week that they’ve had the same thing happening. Someone placing orders with stolen credit cards and having them delivered to people who didn’t make the orders.
If you have a shopping cart on your site, monitor the orders coming through and if you start to get a lot of orders in a short time, and it seems unusual to you, investigate it and don’t send out the products in a hurry. Better they’re sent late rather than ending up with the problem I currently have.
Addendum: Months later I found out that the person processing the stolen cards was also a victim. She had been engaged to process orders and her payment was the affiliate fees she received. I’d been communicating with US Police authorities and it seems that a Chinese group had set up an elaborate scheme, engaging Chinese living in other countries (in this case the US) to operate ‘businesses’ online, processing orders for people. This will explain the affiliate’s response to me when I demanded my affiliate fee back through Paypal. I got called some really awful names and told I was being unethical.
Jenifer De La Garza says
I’m very sorry to hear what you’re going through. I know that often times the scammers need to run a charge on a card to see if the card is valid. Might be what they were doing. I hope this all gets cleared up soon.
Kathie Thomas says
Yes, and unfortunately the banks here don’t do what I thought they do when matching details up – leaves merchants open to scams because they’re not aware of it. I’m having to find ways to tighten things up of my own accord.
Fiona says
Thanks for the heads up Kathie. I hope it all works out for you.
Jenne says
Kathie, I am so sorry to read this, my heart just sank for you. What a terrible thing to have happen, I would be distraught! It has so many ramifications too. I find it hard to believe how low some people can stoop. Of all people, you certainly do not deserve people treating you like this. xxx
Cindy Greenway says
Kathie .. so sorry to hear what you’ve been through! I so appreciate you sharing so the rest of us can try to avoid the same situation.
I don’t understand why these kinds of things happen … if people put this brain power towards something constructive, they could do very well in life.
Thanks again for sharing.
Cindy Greenway
Rhianne Griffiths says
You reported it to your e-Crime Officer at the local Police Station, I guess?
It’s a bit redundant now Kathie but what advice did the Police give to you regarding checks on Affiliates?
It might be something others of us could be thinking of for the future and certainly useful for those of us working with Clients who might have Affiliate Schemes running.
It could be a great topic for a blog “How to investigate a new Affiliate.”
Who was it exactly, who coined that phrase, “These things are sent to try us?”
Arrrrrgh and double arrrrrgh on your behalf!
Rhianne
aka @LadyBizBiz
Kathie Thomas says
It took awhile to get the police involved but there is a dept in the US now looking into it as it appears the perpetrator lives in the US.
Jasmin says
Wow…that is sad and just crazy. I’ve been the victimm of fraud too, but nothing like this, since it was my personal account and the bank was able to refund the money. Thank you for the heads up and I hope by now there is some resolution.
Jasmin
Kathie Thomas says
I can’t see there will ever be any resolution Jasmin as there is nothing to recoup my fees. Insurance doesn’t cover it, the bank isn’t looking out for me as they’re looking out for the ‘customer’. My best hope is that those who did this gets caught but whether I’ll ever be informed I have no idea.
Kathie Thomas says
Update on this – the person processing the stolen credit cards had been engaged to process orders online. She thought she had a real job and thought I was a ‘dog’ for claiming back her affiliate fees through Paypal. I was accused of scamming her and all affiliates. End result for me – I withdrew a lot of my products on my shoppingcart, particularly those items I knew were being promoted on the affiliate’s site and I’m yet to put them all back up there.