Credit Card fraud from Ghana/Nigeria

Beware of credit card fraud in Nigeria!

[Hubcap_Ron]

I'm a hubcap business located in central Indiana. I've been a credit card merchant now for over 5 years. Recently, I've just received and shipped a large order of wheel covers to Lagos Nigeria. The buyer - claimed to own an auto parts store - used two credit cards & requested that charges be equally split between the two. Both cards authorized and processed. The first order was almost $1050 including the freight. That was 5 sets of 2002-03 Toyota Corolla wheel covers - all of which I had on hand. They wanted 10 sets of each style (a total of 30 sets), but I didn't have that many so I shipped the 5 sets that I had. Then they place an order for 10 sets of 2001-02 Honda Accord wheel covers. I charged the two cards (which authorized again) a little over $1000 for the first 6 sets before shipping. That gave me time to get them prepped, reconditioned and ready to go and to be sure everything was ok. Then the day before the first 6 sets were scheduled to ship I get a call from a lady that works at a Baptist Church in Texas requesting information on the individual that made the charge to their credit card! Fortunately I was able to cancel the second order that was charged and return the charge to the church, but obviously the first order had shipped 2 weeks before so I couldn't just return the charge on that order. I'm very thankful that the lady at the church was very nice & understanding about the whole ordeal. We worked together on it (and still are) and I'm hoping - and so is she - that I don't have to bite the bullet. Of course the cardholder can always dispute any charge and not have to pay, but how about the merchant? What happens if her credit card company reverses the charges on me and I lose payment on the first order and all the cost of freight? What recourse do small businesses like myself have against this type of thing? Anyone out there know? Any assistance would be very much appreciated!

-- Ron

[edited by: lorax at 9:47 pm (utc) on April 27, 2005]
[edit reason] No URLs please [/edit]

[jsinger]

blame the Nigerian government (which ever General or Colonel runs the place today) for allowing this to get out of control

But for decades, the US postal service dutifully delivered millions of Nigerian Scam Letters before email was invented. WHY?

I could spot a Nigerian Letter before I opened it. Why didnt the USPO put a stop to delivering them?

[Essex_boy]

Nigeria was rated 144 out of 145 on the corrupt nations scale in the Sunday telegraph a few weeks back.

I thought really? Why are they tell me this, like I dont know.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I could spot a Nigerian Letter before I opened it. Why didnt the USPO put a stop to delivering them?

Are you serious? What kind of society says that the authorities should decide what mail you receive? What if they got it wrong?

[Habtom]

"I could spot a Nigerian Letter before I opened it."

Do they have small stickers labeled "spam"? . . . hhhh

[classifieds]

Railman,

Can I get in on a little of that action? Sounds like a great deal ;)
How are we going to split it up? I want to get my mullions of dollars as soon as possible!

PLEASE. I HELP YOU RESTORE FAITH IN THE NIGERIAN PEOPLE. I AM JESUS CHRIST, LONG LOST TWIN BROTHER OF QUEEN ELISABETH OF ENGLAND. I WAS RECENTLY KILLED IN PLANE CRASH CAR CRASH SHOT DEAD BY REBELS. WITH THE HELP OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS I HAVE THE SUM OF FIFTY (50) MILLION DOLLAR IN CHOCOLATE COINS. I WISH TO HELP RESTORE FAITH IN ESTEEMED NIGERIAN FRAUDSTERS

WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU IS TO PROVIDE A SAFE ACCOUNT COMPANY OR PERSONAL INTO WHICH THE FUNDS WILL BE TRANSFERRED SINCE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ARE NOT
ALLOWED BY OUR LAWS TO OPERATE FOREIGN ACCOUNTS. IT HAS BEEN AGREED THAT THE OWNER OF THE ACCOUNT WILL BE COMPENSATED WITH 20% OF THE REMITTED FUNDS. WE KEEP 70% WHILE 10% WILL BE SET ASIDE TO OFFSET EXPENSES AND PAY THE NECESSARY TAXES.
IF THIS PROPOSAL SATISFIES YOU, PLEASE SEND TO ME YOUR FAX AND PHONE AND YOUR BANK NUMBER AND COPY OF YOUR PASSPORT. PLEASE SNED ME $100000 DOLLAR SO I CAN OPEN NEW BANK ACCOUNT IN YOUR NAME AND AND GIVE YOUR 20% ($9 MULLION DOLLARE) INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT TO HELP RESTORE FAITH IN ESTEEMED NIGERIAN CROOKS

ALL MODALITIES OF THE TRANACTION HAVE BEEN WORKED OUT AND ONCE STARTED WILL NOT TAKE MORE THAN 12-14 WORKING DAYS WITH THE ABSOLUTE SUPPORT OF ALL CONCERNED. THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% RISK FREE. PLEASE TREAT AS URGENT
AND VERY CONFIDENTIAL. GOD BE WITH YOU AS I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR REPLY.
YOURS FAITHFULLY,
JOHN SMITTH

[classifieds]

I think jsinger is headed in the right direction (maybe not intentionally but. . )

But for decades, the US postal service dutifully delivered millions of Nigerian Scam Letters before email was invented. WHY?

I could spot a Nigerian Letter before I opened it. Why didnt the USPO put a stop to delivering them?

The bottom line is that there are service providers who make money selling to these (and other) criminals. If you can take the profit out of it for them no one will.

My personal list of who makes money or facilities their activities are:

- ISPs and infrastructure providers
- hosting firms
- free email providers
- money tranfer firms
- registrars
- satellite providers
- (still working on the list)

Does anyone have other additions?

[obiroyce]

I am not really complaining.What I'm doing is natural & there's no way I could see the kind of crazy stuffs Pple say about my country here and keep mum.
There's no need to forward me mails sent to you because i also recieve such mails and I know what they're all like & what that means is that everyone can be a victim including Nigerians.I guess to some Pple it wouldn't make sense but it does happen.

[donpps]

Ok am I missing something here. I read scam from Nigeria NOT Ghana .. so why the topic header?

Let's not pull an entire country into disrepute.

Don

[cobymontoya]

Preventing fraud when you ship internationally is a #*$!. I work for an e-commerce company. Most of our partners only ship within the U.S. but we have a few big ones that do ship internationally. We have a system that shows us the geo location of the ip address and what country the CC was issued in based on the cards bin. If all 3 match we pretty much let the order go. If you have an order with a Canadian issued CC, U.S. billing addy and a Korean ip address than you could pretty much just cancel it. Another thing you can do is send the customer an e-mail and ask them to call in to verify some info, half the time if its a bad order they wont bother calling in. If they do call in and if you feel necessary ask them for the phone # on the back of their card and call the issuing bank and do a name,address and phone verification. If the info does not match e-mail them again and ask them to provide the correct info. May sound like a lot of work but its alot better than getting a chargeback.

If your in the U.S. i wouldn't even do ship internationally unless you really feel its worth it. If your company is based outside of the U.S. than I guess that may not be an option.

[edited by: lorax at 1:11 pm (utc) on June 27, 2005]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[cobymontoya]

but yea as far as Nigeria goes everyone pretty much said it. It's not worth botherin with them at all. Same with Ghana and a lot of other countries in Africa. You want to be very leery of Israel as well. I've yet to see a good order with an Israel ip address.

[jsinger]

Hmmm?

but we have a few big ones that do ship internationally.

A "Nigerian" order for baseball team clothing? That should trigger any fraud alarm. BTW, most of us use "Nigeria" to include several neighboring nations such as Ghana, Togo, Ivory Coast etc whose names often show up in 419 fraud letters.

[edited by: lorax at 1:12 pm (utc) on June 27, 2005]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[cobymontoya]

Yes ofcourse it does. I did not say we ship to Nigeria. Our shipping info form does not even have them as an option. We do however come across orders with Nigerian ip's which are always bad orders.

[Pyewacket]

Hubcap_Ron - if you didn't know about Nigerian fraud schemes then it's a safe bet that you don't spend much time on webmaster/ecommerce online forums. I have a friend who was bitten just like you - she lost about $500 worth of merchandise and her dignity was bruised. I asked her how she could have let herself be conned by an order from Nigeria. I then found out that she had never even heard of Nigerian fraud! I then asked if she hadn't read about it on any internet forums and she said "I don't have time to fool around with that." IMO, that's where she went wrong. You see - if you don't frequent at least one or two forums regularly, you don't even know what you don't know.

I'm sorry that you were burned so badly. The only thing I can suggest is that you find a 'home' forum and read it at least 2-3 times a week. Don't read only the topics that you know. Browse through all of the topics. You might be surprised what you find and learn. Good luck to you in the future.

[obiroyce]

flabbergasted I am