Retailers Beware More Fraud

Today I was contacted by a local biz informing me about fraudulent orders they are receiving, one of the people attempted to place a fraudulent order said they would send Cc statement with their name on it. This was from out of country.
They are also having orders placed through their website, they have a POS system. The Cc charges are run automatically by the POS merchant account and then the Chargeback’s start to hit the bank account within days from the fraudulent Cc charges. By that time the product has been shipped because the merchant was under the impression the POS system did an authorization of the Cc.

The problem is if you have a POS system, they do not do an in-depth authorization of the orders and billing information. The business that contacted me called the Admin of their POS to ask how secure the system was and was told that they do not check the orders.

Most POS systems do not have a full secure “authorization” feature to tell you if any order is real or not. If someone has stolen a Cc and uses the rightful persons name and address but has the product shipped to another address such as MailBoxes Etc, there is not much you can do about it since the process is not failsafe …

As much of a pain as it is we’ve chosen to process all our orders manually, it’s time consuming but it gives us the opportunity to verify the information before wine is shipped and not deal w/chargeback’s. The other benefit is when a customers changes something on their order, doing it ouselves makes life easier.

While the POS systems are great, I guess this is one side of it that may not have been thought out. Hopefully it’s something they can protect retailers from in the future.

Piece of Sh*t?

What is a piece of shit, the POS system?

Don’t be silly. POS = Priory of Sion. Carrie and Randy have a couples membership.

POS = Point of Sale … Those ITB know what it is .

You bunch of POS (not point of sale)

That was my business and I was a pioneer in its development.
That is why I had asked Bob what he thought was- as he said sh*t?

MIB: “Unlimited technology from the universe and we have to cruise around in a Ford POS.”
lol

The seller is responsible for fraudulent charges when the CC isn’t present at the time of sale such as an Internet sale.

Ron,

POS is a standard abbreviation for “piece of shit”, at least as much as any can for such a phrase.

Who knew, guess I’m not up to speed.

For several years I’ve been receiving the email newsletter of a great little wine shop in Eagle Rock, CA., called Colorado Wine Company. The couple that owns it were featured on a TV documentary that actually partially inspired me to open my shop back in 2006 (I wound up selling it 3 years later, but I don’t blame them ;o]). These guys are extremely creative and their newsletter is always fun. They’re a good hour drive from me, so I’m not customer, but I do really appreciate what they’ve done with their business.

Anyway… with respect to this topic… here’s their sense of humor at work in a scam situation:

The Fuzz Don’t Get Fuzzy



If you’ve been reading this newsletter for awhile you’ve heard reference to email scams we get on a weekly basis. It’s usually someone urgently trying to get really expensive bubbly via a courier service and Western Union and they’re going to shit themselves if it doesn’t happen in the next 10 minutes. You may even recall a twist on that scam involving cheese puffs that we received last year.

Anyway, we got another one. And this guy was just dumb enough to respond.




**On Feb 3, 2012, at 9:09 AM, Hettinger Andre wrote:



Hello,



I will like to know if you carry this champagne in stock or if you can special order them for me we need them for an event. Louis roederer cristal champagne 2004 vintage In gift boxes … 30 Bottles I will arrange for the pick up of the order from your location.And also let me know which credit card type you accept between Visa/MC…Will be expecting the quotation,so i can proceed with the payment details.



Regards.

Hettinger





**Our response on On Feb 3, 2012:



Hi Andre,



We prefer taking the Diner’s Club card if possible and our gift boxes are made of lamb’s wool and paraffin. If this is acceptable I would be glad to get together a quote for you. Visa/MasterCard will work as a very last resort.



Best,

John



Colorado Wine Company

2114 Colorado Blvd

La,Ca 90041





**On Feb 3, 2012, at 9:52 AM, Hettinger Andre wrote:



I’m glad to hear from you, go ahead and let me have the Quote…



Thanks

Hettinger…



**Our response on On Feb 3, 2012:



Great, Andre.



At $189.99/ btl, 30 btls comes to $5,699.70 + tax. Now keep in mind, with these limited edition lamb’s wool gift boxes, you have a strong fluffy factor. When I say “fluffy factor” I mean there’s a lot of volume so make sure your driver understands that his/ her car/truck will be filled to the absolute edges with lamb’s wool. Most importantly if he/she doesn’t like that itchy feeling on their neck and wrists from wool sweaters, boy they sure aren’t going to want to get in a car accident with this cargo!



That’s about it. I look forward to receiving your payment information and we’ll get this order fulfilled right quick. It’s a great bubbly and an even greater package.



Best,

John





**Two days later he sends a credit card number with no other information in the body of the email



**Our response on Feb 5, 2012:



Andre,



I finally have your product here. Thanks for sending payment information. Our credit card processing system is quite old so we often borrow our neighbor’s credit card terminal (or CC-TERM as we say in the biz). Our neighbors are the Los Angeles Police Department Northeast Division so the charge will show up as LAPDNE on your credit card bill. And just to avoid any confusion (and in case we’re closed, have run out for a latte, or just forget to open the store the day you come in) we will leave the bubbly at the police station and the nice men and women in blue will help you load up your car. They also like to be tipped for their work so please set aside 4 bottles of Cristal… BUT! And this is very important…Please oh God PLEASE take the lamb’s wool gift boxes off them first. The LAPD hates and I mean HATES the feeling of wool against their skin. I’m serious, they’d probably shoot you dead. So heed my words. And enjoy the bubbly!!!



Best,

John



Colorado Wine Company



** Nothing back from Andre yet, but we’ll keep you posted

OMG. Lamb’s wool and paraffin.

This is absurd and pretty scary, I can’t believe that the POS companies aren’t doing more to protect the retailers. The fees and such could get out of hand before someone ever noticed. I enter all of my sales through GoPayment then check to make sure it cleared before I ship. However I am still a very small winery so it doesn’t kill me to enter them all by hand but I can see the need for automatic charging especially at Club Shipment time. Trust no one except your mother and keep a close eye on her!