retail fraud

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kalevra

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I run an e-commerce website.

Had a guy call me asking me for 30 ipod nanos, 30 ipod touches and 20 PSPs... From a company looking for "corporate gifts" apparently.

I arranged a quote and told him the PSPs I can't get a good price on. He immediately replied without negotiations and even though the PSPs were way of normal retail and said he wanted to proceed.

I then ignored him and today he phoned asking about (too pushy - I mean for an order like that if you ignore a prospective client they usually look elsewhere) I asked him for a purchase order on a letter head. He sent one chop chop but you can see when he dialed he appended "*31*" the our number when dialing obviously to hide the number he is faxing from.

I checked out the Vat no. on the letter head and it belongs to a different co. The ck number and no such number exists.

Obviously it's fraud. My question is how best to deal with the situation? My inclination is to do nothing and forget about it because dealing with SAPS is just a head ache. But on the other hand if I could help catch the son-of-a-gun we could stop others from being defrauded.

Ideas?

P.S. When I say "I could help catch" I don't mean to engage with the perp. but rather just providing info to authorities etc.
 
Just confront him. I dealt with a lot of fraud when I use to work for a large retail company that sold over the phone. If I indentified it was fraud then I would confront them and tell them that their details where wrong.

They just move on to the next one.
 
Report him to the SAPS, please. Doing nothing is akin to complicity in my opinion. The SAPS have fraud divisions that can handle this. I'm pretty sure it won't be too much of a burden on you to report them...
 
Well we don't really want them to move on do we?

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
 
DJ... said:
Report him to the SAPS, please. Doing nothing is akin to complicity in my opinion. The SAPS have fraud divisions that can handle this. I'm pretty sure it won't be too much of a burden on you to report them...
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Not really cared about your opinion on the complicity issue... However I do think I'll report this so that they don't get anyone else!

I'll go through and report back with how it went at our local station... Let's see if they're as incompetent as I think they are.
 
kalevra said:
Not really cared about your opinion on the complicity issue...
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Well not doing anything about it knowing full well that they'll be on to the next target is essentially being complicit, don't you think? Glad to hear you're going to report them - hope you come right...
 
yeah I can see the SAPS jumping up to respond to this one, and all the other 5 thousand calls they will receive today.
 
rurapente said:
yeah I can see the SAPS jumping up to respond to this one, and all the other 5 thousand calls they will receive today.
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So we should just ignore crime instead? Or are you just being completely pessimistic for the sake of venting your frustrations?
 
DJ... said:
So we should just ignore crime instead? Or are you just being completely pessimistic for the sake of venting your frustrations?
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Nope... I'm not ignoring it but I'd have to agree... I don't think they really care. I'm going to go to report it but I feel it's a worthless exercise!

Earlier this year we were woken up by gunshots as they were trying to steal a vehicle out of our town house complex and were confronted by a neighbour who returned fire. I asked my neighbours where the police where and they said they didn't call them... They said it's not worth the phone call...

Sorry DJ but this is what we have for law enforcement in the country
 
DJ... said:
So we should just ignore crime instead? Or are you just being completely pessimistic for the sake of venting your frustrations?
Click to expand...

I have no frustrations. I get this every day and I simply click "Mark as Spam" and off I go. The fact is that when it comes to online fraud there are very big syndicates and SAPS is devoting much time and money to those. I just see no point, if no financial loss occured, to bring something to their attention that they know exists, and know is out of control and are trying to address from the heart of the cause.
 
kalevra said:
Nope... I'm not ignoring it but I'd have to agree... I don't think they really care. I'm going to go to report it but I feel it's a worthless exercise!

Earlier this year we were woken up by gunshots as they were trying to steal a vehicle out of our town house complex and were confronted by a neighbour who returned fire. I asked my neighbours where the police where and they said they didn't call them... They said it's not worth the phone call...

Sorry DJ but this is what we have for law enforcement in the country
Click to expand...

In my experience they've been mostly good. I've had my fair share of good and bad experiences and I reckon it's just silly to assume that nothing will be done of it. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy if it goes unreported but could turn out for the best (in the eyes of lady justice) if you do. But like I said, good on you for reporting it.

Your neighbours are imbeciles imho though - even if the crime itself goes unresolved, the report of such a crime is important too...
 
rurapente said:
I just see no point, if no financial loss occured, to bring something to their attention that they know exists, and know is out of control and are trying to address from the heart of the cause.
Click to expand...

Sorry but that argument is not very well thought-through. Attempted fraud should go unreported because someone probably reported something similar previously and the police are probably aware?

In the mid-80s a mafia-boss was brought down because of one single phone call that his mate's babysitter made. They'd been tapping the phone for 5 years already. The smallest details can bring about the biggest changes...
 
Rather report it. Even if SAPs do nothing regular citizens need to start reporting these things even if only in the hope that we are making the lives of everyone else a bit safer.
 
BrendanD said:
Rather report it. Even if SAPs do nothing regular citizens need to start reporting these things even if only in the hope that we are making the lives of everyone else a bit safer.
Click to expand...

Yip, agreed!
 
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