An Observer named Rob Lewis wrote in with an alert to other business owners. Rob is the marketing Director for a company that does Mac and PC support, training and repairs and found himself approached by a foreign national in a former Soviet Republic looking for computer parts. Rob's e-mail to us in full:
Dear Sir,
I am writing today to advise you and all computer hardware resellers out there of a scam. I was recently contacted by a person in Minsk, Belarus. A former republic of the Soviet Union. He wanted to order $16,000 of RAM. He proceeded to give me five Visa card numbers and wanted to split the charges evenly. I was immediately suspicious and checked with my card processing company. They told me that the name on the cards did not match the name of the purchaser, also for a credit card transaction to be completed you must get a real live signature, it must match the person making the purchase, and it must be mailed and confirmed delivery to the persons address on the card. All in all the cards were canceled by the issuing bank and these people will not be getting any RAM from me.
Beware of people from Russia with Visa credit cards making large purchases of hardware over the internet.
Thanks,
Rob Lewis
Marketing Director
Computer NERDZ!
www.nerdz.com
The Mac Observer Spin: This news is not really the type of thing that we would normally cover, but we felt that Mac business owners (and any other type of business owner) would appreciate hearing Rob's message. Talking to other business owners we know we found that the type of scam attempted on Rob is becoming common. Foreign nationals, especially ones in the former Soviet Union which is becoming more and more dominated by Mafia wannabee's and other criminal types, are trying to use stolen or other fraudulent credit card numbers to purchase computer parts through e-mail.
So business owners beware! Make sure you check out any suspicious credit card purchases.
<soapbox> Please note that The Mac Observer is not branding all foreign nationals, Russians or anyone else as a criminal. We simply want our readers to know that they may be subject to a new type of fraud. It is frustrating to see criminals give anyone a bad name. As with any part of our increasingly global community, there are many people trying to earn a fair living doing an honest day's work and there are many more looking to steal money in any way that they can. In this situation it is great to see an Observer bust the bad guys! </soapbox> |