On Tuesday, February 12th Kim Sampson called mentioning that she had spoken with our company controller (actually used his first and last name) and my boss (by first and last name) and was told to call me as I am in charge of ordering the office supplies (which is true).
She then told me that her and her husband were moving from Michigan to Hot Springs, Arkansas and asked personal questions like if I was married. Then she said I should come out to visit her, I would love the hot springs... Which I just thought was absolutely ridiculous. I just wanted to hurry and get off the phone with her but she started her whole sales spiel about the super-cheap pricing and named off items that my boss said we regularly use. I could not get a word in edge-wise. She spoke so quickly and with a really odd accent so I could hardly understand what she was saying, I guess my though process was delayed and it caught me off guard.
I never ordered any items but I let her tell me the prices they were offering and she said she would send me a catalog. A couple days later our shipping department gets in 45 pounds of shipping supplies (More than our small office would have ever imagined of ordering). They received it from UPS not knowing what it was for. If I would have known that there was a chance of these boxes being sent I could have had the shipping mgr. Refuse them. The packing slip contained all the items shipping in the quantity of 2 gross for each thing! No price was included on the packing slip so I called the phone number and received the answering machine message of the lady with the deep scratchy voice. I then googled Tornado Office Systems trying to look for a website and found this...
I have filed a complaint with the better business bureau (but I'm sure it won't solve anything) and we are returning all of the boxes to the address it came from (and I guess just absorbing the cost) and making copies of everything for proof that they were returned. We are waiting for a bill to come in the mail but are unsure what to do from that point on, as I never gave them any payment information. We may be involving our legal dept. From our Company's HQ.
I am so angry that I was scammed, it makes me feel so stupid and naive even though I never ordered anything. I didn't want to hang up because they had my boss' name and could call back and complain that I was rude. I hope other people find this website and follow their instincts before it's too late. I hope that if enough people expose these scammers then they will get caught and have to pay the consequences. I will try to update when I receive any updates and I ask that all of you do the same so we can try to help each other out and beat these scammers at their dirty, tricky games.
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