Kuala Lumpur - possible fraud?

anybody shipped there?

[Christi]

There's a lot of money in Kuala Lumpur, I know, and this order wouldn't have raised any suspicions except for the ship-to (same as the bill-to). She's a typical customers of ours (meaning female), ordered two different widgets (not a dozen of the same), no declines on the card. The address seems legit, with "townhouse" as part of it, although I haven't run it through MapQuest yet.

But the Hotmail address has a different name (a boy's, probably her husband, same last name albeit a typical one).

Also, using our tracking software I was able to track her movements through the site and how she found us--Google, with a generic search term. She did not read the "order info" page, which is unusual for our customers. She doesn't appear to be a repeat customer, although with cookie-blocking that's no longer reliable.

Any advice? Thoughts?

Thank you!

[HRoth]

It has three strikes against it, in my book:

1) hotmail account with a boy's name
2) Kuala Lumpur is in Malaysia, major cc fraud center
3) check out this article on cc fraud from Kuala Lumpur:
[thestar.com.my...]

[Christi]

Well, I G'd her address and found an apartment in the same building on a real-estate auction site. Typical KL humungo apartment building. So I sent it, weighing our low cost if for any reason it gets lost. The major issue would be a chargeback, but we've only had one or two in eight years online.

Thanks for the article; it was news to me, although I'm not unaware of the risks in general. Well, if she tries to order anything else, I'll say no.

Have a good weekend, and thanks again for your thoughtful input, here and in other posts on fraud.

Christi

[mangotude]

Hi Christi,

I was just about to post a message on this when I checked the refresh and saw that you've sent it...therefore i've cut nearly all of the message out.

what i did have was this

...I'm also aware of my Malay ex gf getting increasingly frustrated when she was continually refused by merchants
despite having made a valid, authorised, credit card purchase because of her country of origin. She usually ended up purchasing from an Asian retailer for this reason.

Yes, there's fraudsters out there - like everywhere - but there's also a huge amount of customers wanting to make an honest transaction. I hope in your case it's the latter.

[Christi]

Oh, thanks, Mango. Y'know, I have a customer in Beirut, and if he didn't work at a bank (as their chief financial analyst) I wouldn't have sent him the order to begin with. He has turned out to be a good customer, dare I say friend.

Sometimes I just have to trust my gut. And I feel for your ex. Yeah, legit people get burned. Of course as a legit online retailer it becomes a matter of weighing the odds. I didn't like the Hotmail address. But the fact that the boy's name (in the e-mail address) matched the girl's last name led me to think it was maybe legit.

That and the nice condo building they're living in!

I hope like your ex this gal is okay and it turns out all right. Thanks for your feedback and perspective.

Have a great weekend!

Christi