Forum Moderators: buckworks
Has anyone ever reported a fraudulent order address to the police? Does the reporting the address to the police even helpful for me to do?
I received a fraudulent order and I've been in contact with the person who's really the owner of the credit card; so I will be issuing a credit on her card now.
I tried calling the phone number used to place this order and of course it's sounds like a fax number when I call. I just hate not being able to do nothing; I sent this fraudulent customer an email saying I reported them to the police but I doubt that will do anything.
I'm guessing the mailing address that this person used has to be right or else they would never be able to receive the product I mailed them.
The worst part is this fraudulent mailing address is only 20 mins away from me, and I'm so annoyed I just want to go over there and punch this guy in the face! But I also don't want to go over there and get shot; so I'm hoping the police route will be better...lol.
olimits7
They all make money on chargebacks (except for the police maybe ;).
I've reported fraudulent orders that have resulted in arrest, as well as resulted in some poor lady learning her Vietnamese fiancè was actually using her for her US shipping address and free cash forwarding.
You're correct that you are (one) target of the fraud, and the institutions that benefit from it (charge-back fees, anyone?) are apathetic at best, negligent at worst. As such, it falls to you, the merchant, to defend yourself. I've found the police to be a productive help in my pursuit of fraudsters.
I've gone so far as shipping empty packages to fraudsters, while providing the authorities with the shipping/tracking information. That particular instance led to the arrest of a thief in Canada.
You're not powerless. Report them!
Sure there is a crime, but they won't likely be interested unless you know somebody, and that somebody has the authority to take a 'special interest'. Most departments would dump it off as a 'civil matter'. Partly they don't care. Partly they don't have time to care. You've got a better chance if you are an upstanding citizen in a smallish town. (Who you are and who you know.) (Could be they know the guy already and would love to nail him - again.)
Unless it's big money, time/aggravation will cost you more than you will ever get.
Or it could be that they have had other complaints about this person and yours is the complaint that tips the scale to to push them into action. Or it could be that yours is the first complaint, but there will be more in the future and they will eventually take action.
At worst, you may waste a half hour of your time filing a report that results in nothing. At best, you may get your money back and prevent the scammer from ripping off dozens of other people.
So the person at this address may think they have a part time gig receiving packages for some business, and not know why or where they came from.
Of course, if you ever did come face to face you would know by their reaction it it was them or not.
They contacted the police, and at their request provided some dummy parcels. The police dressed up as courier drivers, delivered the parcel, and then promptly nicked the crook!
Sadly this is not usual, to put it mildly. This would have been before the ecommerce explosion, and also a very high value transaction, so I guess it got their attention more than it would nowadays.
We tried to get the police to do something similar a few years back; an order for a few hundred pounds that we knew was fraudulent (had already been ripped off once at that address!). Called our local police, they said it was nothing to do with them and to contact the recipients local force. Called them and they told us to contact our local police... Back and forth a couple of times and we gave up.
However, a week or two later, we got a letter from the police saying they had raided the address, and had found there a large amount of empty packaging material, but had been unable to make an arrest since there weren't any goods in the premises.
I wasn't very impressed at the time - someone had just tried to steal from me and I wanted blood. But on reflection I think it was fairly reasonable, you can't really expect the police to clear their schedules and drop everything to respond to an attempted small theft, and they did at least try...
Which is exactly the reason why you should call the police. Before this person gets in too deep. You might be saving this person from a lot more trouble because they may have no idea they are being used as a pawn.
