Our organization was contacted by an individual claiming to have an office supply company located in our state who was relocating the business to Florida. Given the high price of shipping the supplies, the story continued, all inventory was being offered at extreme discounts to local companies to avoid having them shipped.
This individual claimed to have even spoken with our CFO, who was mentioned by name, indicating that they had given the go ahead to purchase these supplies, given the price they were being offered at. After this individual ran through a rather large list, in rather large quantities, of exactly which supplies they had, even offering to throw in 'little extras', they went on to say that these items would then be shipped.
Well we did receive five large boxes from South Bay Office Products but upon looking at the shipping label, which said that they had been shipped from Florida, we did some investigating. Why would a company who was supposedly "relocating" to Florida, and selling their supplies in order to avoid having them shipped to Florida, then mail their supplies from Florida?
Upon researching South Bay on the BBB website and this website, it quickly came to light just what kind of company this was. We did attempt to call South Bay for some return shipping labels, as others who have reported this company did advise, but after two weeks of playing phone tag, when the individual always seemed to return calls either during lunch or very early in the morning, we simply just sent the supplies back ourselves.
If you do fall prey to this scam, I would recommend not opening any boxes that are sent from South Bay, to easier facilitate any return process, or to simply just refuse delivery in the first place. We unfortunately were not so fortunate, and had to make the decision that paying the bill to return the supplies was going to be ultimately far less expensive than being on the hook to pay for five boxes of unwanted, overpriced supplies.
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