Yesterday, someone bought a $5K Tudor watch from my website. Slightly suspicious because the guy didn't even bother to "make an offer". Just paid, and paid via credit card. Passed all the credit card security checks. I gave the cursory call on his phone number and he answered, yes it was him and he ordered the watch.

The next day, he attempted to have the package held for pickup at a Fedex location. Failing in that (I specify that packages can only be redirected by me), he called me up and asked for a redirection. And I agreed. Package at this point was already shipped late the night before.

This morning, a strange suspicion came over me and I did a bit more research on the buyer. Email domain was auctioneers.net, which when you go to it was clearly a phishing / spyware site. Then a Google search on the domain only found complaints of attempted fraud. I Googled the delivery address, which was in a decent 55+ community in Florida. Problem was, I coudn't find his name online as a resident at the address. I called the 70 year old lady (same last name) who did live there and left a voice mail.

While waiting for their return call, I rushed to the Fedex and took the shipment back before it was shipped out, canceled the buyer's credit card payment, and informed him that his payment was too high risk for me - he could pay via wire if he wanted. I immediately got several angry emails from the buyer complaining that I could have asked for ID to prove his identity etc, and that he would write scathing reviews at every possible venue.

Then my phone rang, it was the old lady I called earlier who lived in the house where the watch was supposed to be delivered. She said "no one by the buyer's name lives there, and its definitely fraud, my Discover card was fraudulently charged $5K yesterday".

Apparently the scam went something like this:

Scammer steals a credit card number from an old couple, buys a $5K watch to be delivered to the real billing address (so it could pass fraud checks), but has it held for pick-up so he could steal it mid-flight.

Luckily I was able to recall the package before it got delivered! Be careful out there!

 

So sad to read this. Good for you that you managed to avoid scams, sounds like yesterday you had an hard day!

 

Never thought that redirecting would be a sign of a fraud.
I'm always redirecting my incoming packages to my office, because courier always comes before 5PM and I'm still at work then.

I'm also selling couple of watches on eBay and now thinking perhaps there are some ways to get better protection through setting buyer requirements. Never thought about redirection being danger.

 

Same here - I redirect to the local FedEx Office location when direct signature is required because I'm at work during the day and my wife doesn't like waiting around for packages to come. Then again, I'm not a scammer.

 

Redirection in itself is not a 100% sign of fraud - we do it quite regularly. Usually people who have money to burn on expensive watches need to go to work to pay for them hehe.. but its that combined with other red flags.

 

I get that, and I understand you're in a business that's attractive to scammers. It's a tough situation - there are no perfectly safe payment options for both buyer and seller.

 

Glad you caught this.

I have a UPS Store mailbox, and it's my billing address for most of my credit cards. I have everything shipped there and they sign for everything to help protect me, and so I don't have to re-direct. But I have a MyChoice UPS account that would let me do that if needed.

I unbox expensive items on video with the store manager as witness to protect myself from broken or not as described items, or in case the watch I recently bought is actually a brick in disguise.

I also have the UPS Store box up expensive items with the store manager as witness, and ship from there to protect the chain of custody, so I can prove that I didn't box it up at one place but leave with it to swap something else into the box before I ship it elsewhere. Sometimes I'll have FedEX downtown box it and ship from there if I'm given a pre-paid label for them.

 

Oh nice. What is the fee to Fedex for boxing up a package with a pre-paid label?

 

It wasn’t much, probably $10-15 or so the last time I used them to send a watch to Nima. They used crumpled brown paper to pad the watch, but used an ample size box and padding.

The bigger issue was his refusal to let me video or take photos the packing process.