I received a phone call from a very friendly woman named Kim from SVT, Inc. Around 4:00pm on a Friday. Good timing on their part. She let me know she was good friends with my boss (the VP of Finance) and that he had recommended she speak to me regarding purchasing office supplies (conveniently, I am the purchasing manager). She said they spoke about what supplies I usually buy (basic stuff like post-its, highlighters, staplers, etc) and started spouting off all the the money I'd be saving buying "a box or two of this and, say, 3 boxes of this". Before I knew it, I had completed the order and I'd be receiving it in a few days. When it came, it was two huge boxes, both about 3' x 3' x 3'... Ridiculous. I started opening and unloading them (assuming they were from the company I usually buy supplies from. I realized I was opening a box with about 4,000 packs of post-its and hundred of highlighters, among ridiculous amounts of other supplies I did not want. I took the packing slip/invoice (surprised me that they were the same thing) and the total cost for all of my supplies was $6,660.12. No way. The unit of measurement were in "grosses" and I had supposedly ordered half grosses, two grosses etc, but was seeing hundreds of items. I called the number provided several times asking for Kim and leaving a message (I got a machine every time) asking for a product listing, a website to reference or perhaps a catalog they could mail so I could verify what I was supposed to be paying. I didn't hear from them for two weeks until I got a call from a woman named Dawn. It finally struck me that this was definitely a scam when 'Kim' and 'Dawn' had the same voice. She insisted I pay the invoice without referencing my several phone calls. When I asked her to be clear and explain the bill to me, she started yelling at me for holding off on paying it. I told her we didn't want the supplies and that we were sending it back. She said she would cut me a deal and only make me pay half of the $6,000 bill. I said no and that I'd be mailing the items back. She said they would only accept full grosses (which she explained were 244 pieces each) and we'd have to pay for whatever we used (the supplies were in our staff supply closet for a few weeks while I waited to hear back from them). I said that I would return whatever we had and they could do whatever they wanted with their invoice, but we weren't paying it. Mailed everything back, haven't heard from them since.
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