New York Freight Forwarders

Spinoff of another thread

[dickbaker]

The "Help! Billing address and shipping address different" thread prompted me to post this for your considerations and comments.

I've had a few orders on my site in the last few months in which the product was to be shipped to New York City. When I would go to verify name and address, I'd find out that the credit card was from another country. A little more research would yield that the NYC shipping address was a freight forwarding company.

I had such an order today. The item purchased is a widget that is considered a weapon of war and sales to foreign countries are restricted by US law. Looks like someone was trying to get something illegally.

Has anyone else had experiences with these freight forwarding companies?

[HRoth]

I had several orders that went through a mail forwarder in Miami, I think it was, and in California. These were going to customers in South America. The cards were foreign. They were somewhat large orders and I felt suspicious on that score, but they were for things that basically I never get fraudulent orders for and that had little or no resale value, and no evil eye, nothing bad ever came of them. One customer explained to me that they had to pay for each shipment out, so they tended to make sure it was a good sized one. I know two of these customers had businesses here in the US (one even on the internet) but didn't live here. With yours, it could be the person who ordered your widget had no idea it was illegal for them to export.

[dickbaker]

Well, I emailed the customer to tell him that the phone number he provided didn't match. He sent me his real phone number, which was from Canada. I then replied and told him that it would not be legal to send the product to him.

I suspect he's tried to order this product before and thought that by using a New York freight forwarder he might be able to find an online store that will ship the product.

If that happens, the shipping company could get in a ton of trouble.

[arubin]

If you integrate with Maxmind's minFraud it will let you know if the ship address is a known freight forwarder.

[jsinger]

There are lots of scammers living in the Toronto area.

BUT, we do ship to Miami forwarders with almost no trouble.

[Rugles]

We do really good business with frieght forwarders in Miami.

If you are selling weapons, and this person is in Canada, do not ship to them via this forwarding company. Canada has very strict weapons laws and you do not want to be investigated by the RCMP because they think you some sort of a "gun runner". Not good for your business or your personal liberty.