Be Wary of Fraud

It is easy to be critical of modern society due to the fact that we have to be ever-vigilant of frauds, scams and con artists.  However, the confidence man has been around since at least the Middle Ages, and probably since humans started speaking with each other.

I found an excellent article (with great cross-references) at reference.com.  Look up “confidence trick”.  You’ll learn that the phrases “pig in a poke” and “letting the cat out of the bag” are derived from old swindlers’ schemes. 

One of the more modern scams is the “Office Supplies” scam.  True story:

Last week, a box of toner was delivered to my office.  It had our name on it, was addressed to our receptionist and was the right toner for our copier.  Now, our receptionist was astute enough to know that our toner was usually delivered by another supplier and raised the issue with the business manager.  Business manager called supplier and ended up having a heated conversation.  During the call, supplier:

- insisted that receptionist had ordered the supplies;
- told us that receptionist had said that a purchase order was not necessary;
- accused receptionist if lying when business manager told him that receptionist denied these things;
- accused business manager of not knowing her staff well enough; and
- finally, when told that his supplies would not be paid for, insisted that we pay a “restocking fee”, as well as the cost of return shipping!

We told the guy he could pick up his crap at his cost or we would keep it.

This particular supplier was located in Lindsay. 

The OPP Phonebusters web site (phonebusters.com) has a page dedicated to this type of scam.  The scammer calls and, usually, asks to “verify” the make and model of your printer/copier etc.  They then ship you goods (often of inferior quality) with an invoice.  Like this particular guy, they sure make it a challenge to say NO. 

The OPP recommends a brilliant course of action if this happens to you.  Write the “supplier” right away and demand to see proof of the order.  When they cannot provide written proof, write them again and say that you are keeping the unsolicited goods as a gift. 

What are they going to do?  Call the police?  Try to sue you for an unsuccessful scam?  Don’t just return the goods and have it only cost them shipping – take the goods and really cost them money.

I LOVE IT!

I highly recommend that you visit Phonebusters.com.  It explains many of the common scams and how to recognize them.  The best way to prevent fraud is to be able to recognize it. 

What I don’t understand is why this guy argued so much with us.  At that point, we were obviously never going to buy from him again, even if we kept the first batch. 

If the only way to sell product is to shove it down your unwilling customer’s throat, maybe, just maybe, you ought to find another line of work…