Help with Fraud Letter

How would you word it?

[Joop]

A customer from the US (we're in the UK) ordered 3 widgets. Not a problem and didn't trigger our fraud filters. Three widgets were posted out and customer asked for tracking number.

Since then customer has tried to place three more orders - for some reason, payment didn't go through but on the order details the shipping and invoice addresses (and names) were different in each case, and the actual orderlines were different. These were all placed in the same day. He then successfully placed another order, again with different addresses. There is one address that he uses for either the billing or delivery that does re-occur but not everytime. The only thing the same is the email address. The last time he placed the order, we emailed him to ask him to explain the different billing addresses etc before we could ship the goods. He didn't explain just said 'yes i want these goods' (he also confirmed that previous order had arrived). We didn't ship the last order, and wrote to him to tell him his credit card had been refunded.

He has just placed another order - again, one address is the same as before, but delivery address is one he hasn't used before - and also with two different names, again not used before.

Just after this, another order was placed, this time for the same address but with two different names for billing and delivery. This one was not successfully processed.

We are going to refund his credit card again. The amounts involved are small - under £20 each time (apart from first order which was £50).

How do I word the email to him that says something meaning, 'I have no idea what you're up to but want no part of it and don't even think of ordering from us again'.

The different order details/names/addresses are enough to trigger anyones fraud screening but I'm curious that the amounts he's ordering are pretty low - we have more expensive widgets on the site, and as he seems to be quite stupid, if he is fraudulent, why isn't he going for the big stuff?

Sorry for the long email, hadn't realised when I started that it was going to take so long!

Thanks

[hannamyluv]

Just send a letter to him saying that there were problems with his orders and until he contacts you by phone, you will be unable to process any other orders.

If he does call you back, insist on an explination and stand firm until you receive one.

It's our standard policy with customers who have had issues with their orders through us.

if he is fraudulent, why isn't he going for the big stuff

He could be testing your system to see where the holes are.

[Joop]

Thanks for the reply.

To be honest, I can't think of any reasonable explanation that he can give me that explains the number of different orders and I really don't want to do business with him anymore, whether he contacts me by phone or not!

[wackal]

he may also be figuring that if he doesn't get greedy, he can stay under the radar and not get noticed.

[Joop]

that's what I thought at first, Wackal, but then he's done everything since that gives red flags.

If he'd just placed a few successful orders over a period of time, with the same name then we would probably have kept shipping them.

But to order one item with one name and address details, and when that is unsuccessful to place another one a few minutes later with a different item and different contact details it just has to get you noticed!

[wackal]

yes, it's very hard to figure out why people do what they do. I would suggest not mentioning anything about potential fraud in your email, due to the small possibility that you could be wrong. I think this would be very bad customer service. What I do is usually make up a company policy as a reason why order can not be completed. This way, I don't get into accusations or counter accusations.

[Joop]

Last time I emailed him and said the widget was broken and so was refunding his money. If he's persistent with the orders I'll run out of excuses.

Do you think I could say something like 'our payment provider has refused the payment' or should I not lie?

[hannamyluv]

You are not really obligated to fill the order, you know. Just telling him that he needs to contact you before you will fill any other orders is enough. Just b/c someone places an order on you system, doesn't mean you have to fill it. As long as you don't take their money, you can pick and choose which orders you want to fill. You probably wouldn't want to do that with all you customers, but one or two bad ones won't hurt.

[jsinger]

"I'm sorry but we can not accept your order at this time." Or say the order was rejected by your "credit department." Make him do the work.

If he's a crook, you won't hear from him again.

OTOH, we get some really suspicious orders that turn out be be pefectly good. Just run when the words "Nigeria" and "Indonesia" are involved.

[eWhisper]

To be honest, I can't think of any reasonable explanation that he can give me that explains the number of different orders

I work with one small corporation that has 15 businesses underneath it. The email address for the owner is the same, but the billing and shipping address are different based off of what account is buying this purchase, and what office its being shipped to.

Since the cards always go through, we rarely trip a fruad trigger, however, sometimes its caught manually, and a quick phone conversation usually resolves any issues.

The unwillingness of a quick explanation could mean fraud or just a difficult customer.

[Joop]

Well, I wrote to tell hime that we were unable to process his order and were refunding his credit card.

haven't heard anything from him for a couple of days and he hasn't tried to place any more orders.

We're based in the UK and he was in the states. Is there anyway I can check from here, whether a person really does live at an address in the US, and also, what 'type' of place it is.

[philbish]

Sometimes you can find info on the person just by searching around in google.

Try looking up the phone number, without dashes, and with dashes.

Try looking up the name, city state ex. joe shmoe, new york, ny

try looking up the address, etc...

The email address. You might be able to find info on them...

You can always ask that they confirm the bank name and telephone number that the credit card is with. It might be best to do this over the phone because that way they don't have time to go look it up in a database somewhere. If they are fraudulent and you ask over the phone, they might stumble and not know what to say.

Good luck with it.

[lcrichto]

Hmmm

I work with an online retailer and part of my daily work in fraud investigation. From what you've said, I would estimate that this is 99% a fraud order.

1) International Credit Card
2) International Shipping Address
3) Different shipping and billing info
4) Most likely different credit info as well
5) Difficulty contacting customer
6) Multiple orders, different shipping info, different
credit cards?
7) I could give you a lot more reasons but I'd have to
see his order attempts on the back end.

The best way to inform the customer is to:
1) Avoid saying he/she is attempting fraud
2) Give a reason why you're not sending the order
3) Offer a way for the customer to contact you and give
more details or confirm details.

So something along the lines of:

Dear Mr. / Mrs or Order Number:

You recently placed an order online but we are unable to fulfill the order due to complications verifying your information with your credit card issuer. To protect you, our valued customer, we have declined to fill the order and refunded the full charge back to your credit card. Please contact us at ****-xxx-xxxx with the following requested information and we can again proceed with this order and any future orders you wish to place. Until then, any future orders will be declined.

Drivers Licence
Credit Card Mailing Address
Home Mailing Address
Contact Number

Request any info to help you verify the actually card holder is placing the order. Non posession of card orders are always charged back to the retailer so take note.

Hmm...not bad for 3 min of work. Just ignore the spelling mistakes.

Cheers.

[jsinger]

There was a time when I'd send polite rejections to solicitations from Indonesia and Nigeria. Never got an answer to any of those time-consuming emails. Often we'd get another fraud attempt from the same crook a few months later.

Now, with the most obvious fraud attempts, I just hit "delete." Only so many hours in the day and I prefer to provide gushingly wonderful service to our best customers.

[sleepy_eye]

We get fradulent orders from Indonesia and Nigeria all the time. When the orders come from these places they come in waves. I think the fraudsters have a list of sites they use and it takes them a while to go through the list untill its our time again. Ive found the best way to deal with these orders is to not respond at all. That order to me definately sounds like fraud. It doesnt add up. The info is not consistent on the orders. One thing that saves me alot of time is to check the ip the order came from and if its Indonesia or Nigeria, delete the order. Now Im sure there are honest people from those countries but when I used to call the bank on the card, every single time the card info did not match and had eighter been reported stolen or the account was closed.

[Leosghost]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Icrichto ....nice ,concise ,helpfull post...say thanks to the man or lady guys ...: )

[lcrichto]

Thank you for accepting me to this forum. I just happened across it the same day I replied to this post. It's looks like a great site and very informative. I'm looking forward to visiting many times and contributing in any way I can.

Cheers from Toronto Canada.

[ergophobe]

I've been refused service before or had my credit card account cut off because I met (and still sometimes meet) serveral of IcRichto's criteria (like three purchases in 12 hours on two continents and three countries; billing address static and shipping addresses changing).

The difference between me and your client, is a quick call or email and I could give a quick, obvious explanation that made sense *and* answer any verifying questions from the bank. Your client sounds like he's either giving you the runaround or is just plain stupid and though the latter is often a good bet, I wouldn't count on it ;-)

Tom

[Joop]

I did sticky lcrichto to say thanks for an email which gave the exact reply that I wanted to give to the customer. Tone and content were perfect.

While we're on the subject, ok we all know which countries to be more than wary of, but what about other behaviour rather than country that makes an order suspicious?

[Leosghost]

orders from the same source for large multiples of the same item via credit card ...
( normally this knid of thing would be coming with asking for wholesale or export rates and payment via letters of credit of bank transfer )
Having said that I have been known to spend 10,000 $ via visa in one place for swifter importing ....

[TomJ]

Hi all, its my first posting here by the way ;-)

what you should be doing when processing mail order transactions and you think something is up is contacting your credit card merchant services to get special authorisation for the transaction.

This can take up to 48 hours I think tho it depends on who your merchant services are with.

They do all the background checks and contact the cardholders bank etc etc the card holders bank then contacts the customer to confirm the transaction etc etc

this way, you dont miss out on a lot of genuine orders.

;-)

[philbish]

Many times, you can tell if they are legitimate by sending an email like this... If they reply back all confused and worried, then they are legitimate. If they don't reply at all or have really bad grammar, etc... then most likely they are fraud.

Giving them a call can also help figure out whether they are fraudulent or not. If some old grandma picks up and says you have the wrong number, then it is fraud because the scammer just put in a wrong number when they ordered.
-----

Dear Customer,

Regarding the order you recently placed at widget.com, we were unable to verify your credit card and therefore cannot fulfill your order based on the information you provided.

To protect you, our valued customer, we will not process your order until you contact us to verify the information requested below.

Please contact us at 800-111-2222, or [e-mail]

Please provide the following information:
Credit card issuing bank name
Credit card issuing bank phone number
Credit card billing address

Thank you,
Customer Service
[widget.com...]