R
Ron Green
Guest
Speaking of scams, below is one that is currently taking place. It is from a AACA friend of mine and I thought I would post it for FYI:
The other day I received a package from Dell addressed to me via UPS. I opened it up to find a Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC (ultra mobile PC). My wife and I immediately assumed a family member (or a good friend in AACA ) had sent me a birthday present, and it was put in the closet with the rest of the cards and letters. The VERY NEXT DAY, UPS shows up at my door with a return order label for the package. I asked him who requested the return. He said normally it's the person who received the package.
That didn't add up, so I told him I needed to investigate this a little further and asked him if he could come back tomorrow. He said no problem.
The first thing I did was to find out what this electronic contraption was. It's a mini computer of some sort, and retail is $1,200 plus tax. Not the kind of birthday gift any of my friends or relatives would be buying for me.
I then contacted Dell to find out who ordered this, when, and how it was paid for. They said I ordered it, Feb 1, and with MY CREDIT CARD (verified by last four digits).
An immediate call to my credit card company verified a charge of almost $1,500 on Feb 2. I then contacted the card's fraud department.
The woman I talked with told me I was very smart by NOT letting the UPS driver take the package. They are having a big problem with fraudulent orders through DELL. She also informed me that most certainly the criminal is the one who sent the return order/label, and the package would not have gone back to Dell, but to somewhere else. She even said that criminals are now using UPS trucks and uniforms to complete this crime. She said to tell the UPS driver that I will personally take the package to a UPS store and send it back to Dell.
I am NOT forwarding this from some spam e-mail that says to "tell all your friends." This happened to me.
UPDATE: UPS just arrived. Sure enough, the return address was NOT Dell's. I imagine this type of crime works best if the package had been left on the porch without my knowing it was there. The UPS driver would have picked it up the next day, slapped the fraudulent return label on it, and taken it away.
The other day I received a package from Dell addressed to me via UPS. I opened it up to find a Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC (ultra mobile PC). My wife and I immediately assumed a family member (or a good friend in AACA ) had sent me a birthday present, and it was put in the closet with the rest of the cards and letters. The VERY NEXT DAY, UPS shows up at my door with a return order label for the package. I asked him who requested the return. He said normally it's the person who received the package.
That didn't add up, so I told him I needed to investigate this a little further and asked him if he could come back tomorrow. He said no problem.
The first thing I did was to find out what this electronic contraption was. It's a mini computer of some sort, and retail is $1,200 plus tax. Not the kind of birthday gift any of my friends or relatives would be buying for me.
I then contacted Dell to find out who ordered this, when, and how it was paid for. They said I ordered it, Feb 1, and with MY CREDIT CARD (verified by last four digits).
An immediate call to my credit card company verified a charge of almost $1,500 on Feb 2. I then contacted the card's fraud department.
The woman I talked with told me I was very smart by NOT letting the UPS driver take the package. They are having a big problem with fraudulent orders through DELL. She also informed me that most certainly the criminal is the one who sent the return order/label, and the package would not have gone back to Dell, but to somewhere else. She even said that criminals are now using UPS trucks and uniforms to complete this crime. She said to tell the UPS driver that I will personally take the package to a UPS store and send it back to Dell.
I am NOT forwarding this from some spam e-mail that says to "tell all your friends." This happened to me.
UPDATE: UPS just arrived. Sure enough, the return address was NOT Dell's. I imagine this type of crime works best if the package had been left on the porch without my knowing it was there. The UPS driver would have picked it up the next day, slapped the fraudulent return label on it, and taken it away.