A woman claiming to be with Kings Office Supplies, working out of Indiana, said she had spoken with my supervisor, whom she named, and that he referred her to me. Claimed her business was moving to Florida and she needed to liquidate. She quoted incredibly low prices for supplies. She assured me she was not attempting to take our business from our current supplier, but said once she re-located to Florida, where the business would operate under the name South Bay Office Products, she would send me a catalog.
I didn't actually say I wanted to place an order, but the woman went through a list of supplies, asking if we used certain products. If I said yes, she told me she would send x amount. Most items were supposedly available per gross. She even commented that my supervisor noted we have limited storage space.
Later, I mentioned the call to my supervisor. He said he had not spoken to anyone regarding office supplies and did not want to order with any company other than our current supplier. I tried to locate the stores the woman named on the internet, in an attempt to cancel the order. There were legitimate office supply stores by those names, but they were in California. I tried to determine the phone number the woman called from on our caller ID. We'd had only a couple of calls since then, so I believe the number she called from was local. When I called the number, though, a different woman answered.
I remember a coworker in Accounts Payable receiving a call from someone selling office supplies the previous week. She forwarded the call to me but, when I answered, the woman hung up. So, that would explain how the woman got my name as the purchaser of office supplies. How she got my supervisor's name, though, I have no idea.
We received the supplies about two weeks later. The shipping labels give a return address of South Bay Office Products at 1100 Powerline Rd in Deerfield Beach, FL. I've only found one entry with that name and address via an internet search, and it was included in a list of businesses on a Deerfield Beach website without a link to a company website, so I'm presuming that the shipping address is bogus. There are multiple businesses at the address.
Under our company policy, I cannot place an order with any company other than our current supplier, with whom we have an account, without my supervisor's prior approval. According to the FTC website, legally YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO PAY for the supplies and YOU SHOULD NOT RETURN the supplies when you are victim of such a scam. The Scammers obviously count on the invoice going to a different department, where they assume an unsuspecting employee will automatically pay.
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