I am writing this report to warn business owners so they can instruct their employees not to fall for this telephone "office supply" Scam.
On 4/9/03, a representative from this company called our restaurant during rush dinner hour and told the cook who answered that it was probably time to place an order as we had not purchased any supplies for our credit card machine in quite a while. Our employee was busy and assumed it was a legitimate call because it was indicated we had done business with this company in the past. He checked and found our stock was low, so told the representative to send the paper rolls for the machine.
A few days later we received a box with 12 standard 2-ply register rolls, four ink ribbins, and three "Cleaning Cards" (which were basically Wet Wipes). There was no bill enclosed.
On 4/27/03, we received an invoice from this company in the amount of $320.01, which broke down to $14.50 PER ROLL for the paper rolls; $24.14 PER INK RIBBON; $9.98 for EACH INDIVIDUAL Wet One; and $19.50 for shipping.
In addition to the outrageous price, the invoice was dated 4/9/03 with a note at the bottom reading: No returns accepted without authorization after 7 days of shipping. However, the invoices was mailed out to us at least 14 days AFTER shipping the merchandise, most likely to ensure there was no way we could return it without a hassle.
We immediately returned everything via FedEx so that we would be able to have proof that we returned it and thought that would be the end of it.
Yesterday (6/18/03), my husband received a phone call from a woman at this company demanding payment of the invoice. When he told her we had returned the merchandise weeks ago, she denied having received it. I traced the FedEx shipping information and found that the package we sent on 4/28/03 was received and signed for by someone at their company (RConstatine) on 5/1/03. I sent a copy of the FedEx tracking information to them and asked that they not contact us again.
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