Scammer acting under the name Antonio Branch ordered 20 gals of our industrial coating. He was in Valletta Malta he claimed, and needed it shipped there. We insisted on payment upfront. Which he duly did and paid via credit card. The full payment received included the freight cost we had received from his chosen shipping company (Sky Shipping UK Ltd) in London to transport the product form our plant in Houston to his address in Malta. The London shipping company also wanted to be paid up front and we duly wired exact funds to the London shipping company per instructions. Within a few days the scammer ordered another 30 gals and paid up front with credit cards. We wired the funds to pick up the additional product to the London shipping company. A few days later he added 30 more gals and again paid up front in full including freight. We wired the funds to the London shipping company for all three orders to be picked up. To our surprise three charge-backs appeared in our bank account without warning or notification. We canceled all further orders and immediately communicated with the shipping company for a return of our funds since they had never picked anything up. We did not communicate with Antonio Branch to see if the shipping company would inform him about the cancellation of his orders. We have not heard anything from either party for 10 days. Essentially Antonio Branch had stolen credit cards and the charge backs came to our bank from the true owners of the cards (according to our bank). By stealing credit cards and wiring funds they had hard cash for their efforts. That hard cash came from my account.
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