jaeden - 3:20 pm on Jan 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

graywolf,

Not to be punny, but thats a gray area. You have just listed all the tell-tale signs of what the fradulant card-holders to. I've gone so far as to send myself and email whenever someone orders from Miami, because I haven't had much luck there.

Sometimes if I want to investigate myself, I'll go to InfoSpace and do a reverse lookup on either the phone or the address. Sometimes that is revealing. I also go to this phone finder website at [primeris.com...] which can tell what network a phone is on (cell or land), and can identify countries from country codes.

The only leg you may have to stand on is if you do address verification and it comes up positive. If so, you've done your job. I've even gone so far as to call someone when I thought the order was fishy. Many times, the person who ordered just uses their cellphone, and they confirm the order.

Law enforcement is NOT going to help you. I've been told that unless the amount lost is over $50,000 then they won't bother. I did report a loss of $750+ to officials in Miami, however no one called back (and I don't expect them to). If you accept credit cards, then you must include in your budget for the year a line item for chargebacks, because they are inevetible.