eCommerce Fraud Prevention
Discussion
After losing a very expensive item at the beginning of the year we've been pretty hot on spotting fraud, to date we've only had a few fraudulent orders and all but the aforementioned were refunded before we lost out.
I've got an order at the minute for an item, all the trust signals are there except theres a few different names flying around.
Person A wants an item (£600) he wants it shipped to person B who is in Poland but the billing address is person C in the UK (who is a Dr)
They're all foreign names and none of the names match up i.e family. (not that it matters, a lot of my customer are foreign and I obviously have no problems with that!!)
However... I have all of their email addresses as my main contact copies them in when emailing me, I've spoken to him on the phone numerous times and the delivery address is a company which seems to check out, it's a global Energy company. Previous fraud has ALWAYS been online, to UK addresses and no response on phones. Plus it's always been via credit/debit cards. I have the billing address as well.
Payment is strictly by bank transfer, which has already been done today via UK bank account. Shipping is via tracked and insured courier. Customer requested insurance.
So I can't see how this can be fraud (maybe customer would claim not received and requests a refund - although if I refuse he has no way of requesting the money back without taking me to court) but I always get concerned when there are a few different names flying around. Am I missing anything or does it seem legit? Seems a whole lot of effort to go through for a niche product that's not easily sellable and isn't super high value and I can't see how you can fraudulently make a BACS transfer. I won't lose any sleep if I lost this particular item to fraud but I thought I'd run it past the experience and knowledge of Pistonheads in case I'm missing something here.
I've got an order at the minute for an item, all the trust signals are there except theres a few different names flying around.
Person A wants an item (£600) he wants it shipped to person B who is in Poland but the billing address is person C in the UK (who is a Dr)
They're all foreign names and none of the names match up i.e family. (not that it matters, a lot of my customer are foreign and I obviously have no problems with that!!)
However... I have all of their email addresses as my main contact copies them in when emailing me, I've spoken to him on the phone numerous times and the delivery address is a company which seems to check out, it's a global Energy company. Previous fraud has ALWAYS been online, to UK addresses and no response on phones. Plus it's always been via credit/debit cards. I have the billing address as well.
Payment is strictly by bank transfer, which has already been done today via UK bank account. Shipping is via tracked and insured courier. Customer requested insurance.
So I can't see how this can be fraud (maybe customer would claim not received and requests a refund - although if I refuse he has no way of requesting the money back without taking me to court) but I always get concerned when there are a few different names flying around. Am I missing anything or does it seem legit? Seems a whole lot of effort to go through for a niche product that's not easily sellable and isn't super high value and I can't see how you can fraudulently make a BACS transfer. I won't lose any sleep if I lost this particular item to fraud but I thought I'd run it past the experience and knowledge of Pistonheads in case I'm missing something here.
I can see why you are concerned , some red flags there for sure
Have you asked them outright why they are proceeding the way they are?
If they are regular customers could be worth performing some KYC on the customer/s, or trust your gut instinct if it is a one off and you can afford to lose the delivery in very worst case scenario and no laws or legislation are being broken
Have you asked them outright why they are proceeding the way they are?
If they are regular customers could be worth performing some KYC on the customer/s, or trust your gut instinct if it is a one off and you can afford to lose the delivery in very worst case scenario and no laws or legislation are being broken
Edited by TwistingMyMelon on Wednesday 5th October 09:18
For anything like this I would assume carriage fraud and insist on ex works (they arrange carrier) only. Fraudulent bank transfer is normally flagged very quickly so payment received monday, ask them to arrange collection thursday and advise courier, call courier to understand paperwork and then allow collection. If they want it bad enough they will collect.
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