I used Roboshopper to comparison shop for a new cellphone. Roboshopper found several merchants listed on thefind.com. Bestmminc.com offered the item at a price significantly below the competition (a red flag right there). I emailed to confirm that the item was new in box, the U.S. Version, unlocked, and had a full warrantee. The vendor replied within 24 hours confirming all of the above, and urging me to place the order soon because sales were brisk.
I then went to the website and placed the order using my AMEX card. One day later, I received a call from the vendor. Very difficult to understand because he was obviously using VOIP and the call was very garbled. The gist of it was that there was some sort of problem with their credit card processing, and would I use some alternative method such as Western Union MoneyGram... Immediately I smelled F-R-A-U-D and told him to cancel the order.
But of course, he already had my credit card number, expiration date, security code, name, address, and phone number. I immediately called AMEX who told me not to worry because they had a superb fraud detection process.
Two days later I received a call from the AMEX fraud department who confirmed with me that two fraudulent charges had been detected on my account. The card was cancelled, and a new card was to be sent out by overnight delivery.
Can I PROVE that this vendor was the source of the fraud? No. But I immediately felt I was being set up for fraud when he called me, and the fraudulent charges followed soon after.
BEWARE: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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