A woman claiming to be from Kings Office Supplies called asking for me by name and told me that my supervisor, the company controller (she mentioned him by name), referred her to me. She explained that she was re-locating to FL and needed to liquidate, so was offering office supplies at incredibly low prices. Although I didn't state that I wanted to order, she proceeded to ask me what supplies we use, running through a list, under the supposition she had received approval from my supervisor to take an order.
The woman even stated that the controller (again, whom she mentioned by name) said that we don't have a lot of storage space (which is true). She told me that her business would be operating under the name South Bay Office Products once she moved to Florida and that she would send me a catalog, although she also assured me she wasn't trying to take our business from our current supplier. When I later mentioned the call to my supervisor, he informed me he had not spoken with anyone about office supplies and did not want to order from any company other than our current supplier.
I tried looking up the company to cancel the order, but the only office supply companies I could find by the names she gave were located in California (she claimed to be presently working out of Indiana). Since we had received only a few telephone calls that morning, I looked through the numbers on our caller ID to try to determine the number she called from. There was one local number (a residential number), but when I called it, a different woman answered.
I remember a woman calling the previous week, asking for our Accounts Payable department, and a coworker in that department transferred the call to me, telling me later that the woman asked for the person who purchases our office supplies, but the woman hung up when I answered. So, that explains how she got my name as the purchaser of our office supplies, although she inferred that she got the information from the controller.
When I received the order, the return address was at 1100 Powerline Road in Deerfield Beach, FL and the telephone number given was 954-834-5370. Through internet searches, I have found that there are multiple businesses at that address, but there was no suite number on the boxes. I have found the company name on one website for Deerfield Beach, but there is no link to a business website.
With the help of information from another post on this site, I found that the business is also operated under the names Office Products Management Inc. And Office Etc., with Richard Holof listed as president of the company and Harry Holof named as VP. The shipping address is likely a bogus address since the only address for the Holofs is 3660 NW 126th Ave.in Coral Springs, FL. Although there are websites for Office Etc. (onlineoec.com and officeetc.net) they are in different states, so I suspect the Holofs have resorted to using the names of existing office supply companies to throw investigators off their track.
According to the FTC, when you are the victim of such a scam, YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO PAY for the merchandise and YOU SHOULD NOT RETURN the merchandise.
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