[NA] OMG FRAUD - a Bard's Tale

ChrisK

ChrisK

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So some jerk hacked into my walmart.com account and ordered a laptop for store pickup. Being the proactive monitor of my account information that I am, I noticed it within 20 minutes and called the Illinois Wal-Mart that was holding the product for pickup. After being hung up on twice and told erroneously that I had to file a police report to have my order canceled, I got someone on the phone to verify that the merchandise hadn't been picked up and that the order would be canceled and refunded.

I then logged in to my walmart.com account and deleted all methods of payment to include the debit card that I had stupidly left in there after ordering GoPro sticky mounts six months ago. While doing that and changing my password, I verified that the order had been canceled.

I left a message with the duty officer at the Lansing, IL police department. They are calling me back later to get my report. I'm sure they won't be waiting for the would-be thief to pick up his merchandise, but one can dream.

Finally, I called my bank and disputed the charge with the fraud hotline. It will take a couple few days at least, but I'm getting my money back even if Wal-Mart neglects to reverse the charge.

Good points:
- Wal-Mart emailed me as soon as the order was placed and I was able to rectify the situation because I happened to be paying attention.
- My bank was practically eager to help me dispute the charge and is expediting returning my funds
- I won't miss the $400 for a few days

Bad points:
- I was stupid to leave a credit card on file with a retail establishment. I think I did it accidentally.
- People who work at Wal-Mart - even management - has no idea what one should do in these situations

I feel strongly that there is no way one can protect one's self against fraud. One can only monitor one's accounts and deal with issues quickly and thoroughly. My wife informed me that while I WASN'T paying attention, Wal-Mart's accounts got compromised. and that I was supposed to check it last week.

In any event, I'm fairly happy how this turned out so far, and wanted to caution others who may have walmart.com accounts they forgot they had.
 
I went through a fiasco like this, but from the other end.

Here's a post I made about my experience:



I have used eBay for many, many years to good effect and with very few problems. I even made some money on the stock - its a great company.

But recently I had two out of five transactions have problems, one due to fraud and one due to who-knows-what. I’ll cover the second in a follow-up.

You guys may remember I was in the market for a new n-wireless router, and I had settled on a Linksys E3200. I found several on eBay, new for $100 “Buy It Now” price. I settled on one and pulled the trigger. The listing is.... Nothing looked suspicious.

But here’s what happened:

I did not hear anything back from the seller for a day or so, which is unusual.

When I checked to verify my PayPal payment, the payment had gone to someone with a Vietnamese name in Vietnam.

When I emailed him about when the router might ship, I got a generic response about the “item” being shipped soon.

A couple of days later, I got a call from a fellow in Baltimore. He said he had had something odd happen. He had received an order confirmation from Amazon.com for a Linksys E3200 router, charged to him but to be sent to my address. He had cancelled it in time. I relayed the above to him and he seemed satisfied I wasn’t involved.

I called both eBay and Amazon.com and filed fraud reports. I assumed I was not getting the router, and was told I would have to wait until Mar. 8 to file for an eBay refund since the seller had only promised shipping by Mar. 6.

A few evenings ago I got an email from the seller saying my item had been shipped, complete with a FedEx tracking number.

A box arrived the next day via FedEx from WalMart.com. The buyer was a gentleman from Wisconsin.

I looked him up on Google and got in contact with him. He verified that he had gotten a head’s up that his debit card number had been stolen, and he knew nothing about the WalMart.com order. I gave him my name and number if he or his debit card company needed to verify anything.

I called WalMart.com and made a fraud report. The lady said they’d get back to me.

And that’s where things stand. What a mess. I’m in possession of the router, but it was obtained by fraud so I haven’t opened the box. I assume WalMart will want it back, but don’t know what the next step is. I guess I’ll still apply for the PayPal refund, though the fact that I did end up with the advertised router complicates things.

Its too bad that this kind of scheme is going on - apparently from Vietnam this fellow is offering routers he does not have, and then using stolen credit cards to get a router delivered to the buyer, who could possibly be none the wiser that he or she was wrapped up in a fraud scheme and receiving de facto stolen merchandise.
 
Thanks ,good advice,happy you got it turned around.
 
And to not leave you hanging, I still have that router.

Here's the letter I finally sent to WalMart:

Monday, April 9, 2012

To whom it may concern,

Please see the enclosed “Shipment Summary” and chronology for details concerning this case.

In short, I am in possession of a Linksys E3200 router that was obtained from WalMart.com using a stolen debit card as part of a fraud scheme by an eBay seller.

I have made a total of five attempts to return the above router. These consisted of three phone calls, one email and one trip to the Blairsville, GA WalMart. None of these resulted in any action or effort by WalMart.com or WalMart to have the router returned.

As of now, I am considering this inaction and disinterest by WalMart and its employees to constitute prima facie evidence that Walmart has abandoned the above router.

As an aside, I am a WalMart shareholder, and I’m disappointed in this level of customer service and the willingness of WalMart to just abandon property which they could easily have recovered and resold.

Further, Amazon apparently had security measures in place which avoided a similar scheme being perpetrated against them. I suggest you look at your security measures and consider how they might be improved to avoid losses like this in the future.

Sincerely,
 
Glad that you caught it. This is part of why I only use credit cards online (never debit) and route as many of them as I can through PayPal. Although nobody's ever ordered things as they did in your case, I have had a few disputes that have come up, and it provides two levels of protection.

Oh, and we never shop at WalMart. :)
 
I completely forgot about those gorpo stickies or the fact that I had a walmart.com account. Completely slipped my mind. No idea why I used a debit card to buy them.

All in all a good lesson.

I like how they emailed me and said the refund would show up WITHIN TWO BILLING CYCLES. Seriously? Two billing cycles? They're going to hold my money for 2.5 months? Good thing my bank is giving it back!
 
Every business has a different model for how it makes money. For some, it's customer service. WalMart is not such a business. It makes its money off of sheer volume of sales and also holding onto your money.
 
ChrisK said:
So some jerk hacked into my walmart.com account and ordered a laptop for store pickup. Being the proactive monitor of my account information that I am, I noticed it within 20 minutes and called the Illinois Wal-Mart that was holding the product for pickup. After being hung up on twice and told erroneously that I had to file a police report to have my order canceled, I got someone on the phone to verify that the merchandise hadn't been picked up and that the order would be canceled and refunded.
Click to expand...

This is the part I have a problem with. Wal-Mart should have canceled your order right away. If I was the manager at Wal-Mart I would have called the cops and had them wait for the person to pick up your order after the call.

Glad it all worked out for you.
 
Paypal's dispute resolution is good for absolutely zero. Credit cards are very good about such matters. Like Ted, I use Paypal, but only through a credit card account, never through a bank account.
 
ChrisK said:
I like how they emailed me and said the refund would show up WITHIN TWO BILLING CYCLES. Seriously? Two billing cycles? They're going to hold my money for 2.5 months? Good thing my bank is giving it back!
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See, that's all part of the game. Most credit cards allow you to dispute a charge for 60 days, after which it's considered to be a good charge.

If you hadn't disputed it with your bank, then Walmart takes 2 months to get around to it, it's after your dispute period. So if Walmart ultimately decides you have no case and doesn't refund your money, you're stuck, out your money and Walmart doesn't get a charge-back.

I give someone a month to credit the money back, otherwise I'm disputing it well in advance of the 60 day period so there's no question of if I made it in time.
 
ron22 said:
If I was the manager at Wal-Mart I would have called the cops and had them wait for the person to pick up your order after the call.
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Good luck with that. The cops can't afford to have a limited resource (the officer) hang around waiting for Godot. You will have better luck convincing the manager to require a photo ID for pickup and then xerox it for the files. Maybe then the cops will get interested.

That's why Wal-mart is not interested either. The loss of one item is just not relevant in their overall business plan.

-Skip
 
2/3's of the cameras in Walmart stores are in employee-only areas. Should tell you something about where they think their largest losses come from.
 
Skip Miller said:
Good luck with that. The cops can't afford to have a limited resource (the officer) hang around waiting for Godot. You will have better luck convincing the manager to require a photo ID for pickup and then xerox it for the files. Maybe then the cops will get interested.

That's why Wal-mart is not interested either. The loss of one item is just not relevant in their overall business plan.
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The problem is to many stores do not press charges.
 
I just went through this with a Visa and an Amexco card. One involved a laptop from Lenovo and some Best Buy electronics. The other a series <$100 charges at various stores and gas stations.

I found out about the fraud via phone calls from the card companies, long before I rec'd a statement.

I never contacted the sellers and left all that up to the card companies. No problem. I noticed that Lenovo didn't ship the laptop and killed the charge. All the others went thru.

I was never out a dime since I never paid the disputed charges.

I try to pay with Amexco when possible because they detect and resolve these kinds of things with the least involvement required of me.

It was clear that the Amexco card number was obtained at a NYC hotel where the late night clerk made a 'mistake' and required a rescan of my card. The charges started within hours of that swipe and it was the first swipe in weeks on that card.
 
First, I agree with using credit cards only, I don't have a debit card, I cut them up when they arrive! My wife used Paypal to pay for some "clip art" to use for an ad she was working on. It was $49.00 for 7 days with up to 10 downloads per day. Well, she noticed the other day that she was being charged $49.00 twice per week for 6 weeks, vs a one time $49.00 charge!!:yikes::yikes:
She emailed the company, in Canada as soon as she discovered the "error" then called Paypal. It took 10-15 minutes to get somebody on the phone at Paypal, it was 10:00 PM, but they guy was great! The company had already reversed the charges, which surprised me, and he helped her with her non-profit account as well. :D Good service from Paypal that night!:yes:


Chip Sylverne said:
Paypal's dispute resolution is good for absolutely zero. Credit cards are very good about such matters. Like Ted, I use Paypal, but only through a credit card account, never through a bank account.
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Ted DuPuis said:
Oh, and we never shop at WalMart. :)
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Well, that's your loss. It's been my experience that Walmart's prices (at least on groceries) are significantly less on average than other retailers, even direct competitors such as Target. If you're shopping at Kroger, you're really getting fleeced. If you're shopping at Aldi, that's a huge win, especially this time of year when they import all kinds of sweets from Germany.


JKG
 
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JGoodish said:
Well, that's your loss. It's been my experience that Walmart's prices (at least on groceries) are significantly less on average than other retailers, even direct competitors such as Target.


JKG
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Gotta agree with that. Kroger's and another local chain's prices are tantamount to extortion. :mad2:
 
JGoodish said:
Well, that's your loss. It's been my experience that Walmart's prices (at least on groceries) are significantly less on average than other retailers
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Not around here. Sure, our "premium" grocer, Schnucks, is outrageous, but our local chain, Country Mart, is typically as cheap or cheaper than Wal-Mart on food goods.

Plus, I'm not supporting the devil when I shop locally.
 
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Never Never Never use a debit card. . . .

If your debit card information is compromised - whose money is stolen first?

If your credit card information is compromised - whose money is stolen first?

If the bank's money is stolen first, who has the incentive to get it back timely and charge back the retailer?

If your money is stolen first, does the bank have the incentive to go after your money?

I promise you if your debit card and checking account is compromised, you will be treated like someone trying to scam the bank . . . you will need to prove that you did not use your card. Have you ever tried to prove something did not happen when it objectively did happen?

Take the debit card out of your wallet or purse, and cut it up. Ask your bank to send you an atm card that cannot be used to access your account except at that bank's ATM machine - yes - you can limit the card to only use the bank's machines, thereby limiting your exposure to ACH scams as well.
 
AND for those with business accounts, use "positive pay" or whatever your bank calls it! We write checks, the check number, payee and amount is downloaded to the bank everyday. No checks get through unless they agree with the file we send the bank.:D

comanchepilot said:
Never Never Never use a debit card. . . .

If your debit card information is compromised - whose money is stolen first?

If your credit card information is compromised - whose money is stolen first?

If the bank's money is stolen first, who has the incentive to get it back timely and charge back the retailer?

If your money is stolen first, does the bank have the incentive to go after your money?

I promise you if your debit card and checking account is compromised, you will be treated like someone trying to scam the bank . . . you will need to prove that you did not use your card. Have you ever tried to prove something did not happen when it objectively did happen?

Take the debit card out of your wallet or purse, and cut it up. Ask your bank to send you an atm card that cannot be used to access your account except at that bank's ATM machine - yes - you can limit the card to only use the bank's machines, thereby limiting your exposure to ACH scams as well.
Click to expand...
 
Discover card offers throw away numbers for online purchases - which is what I use now after getting hit after an online purchase. Log into your account, request a throwaway number, and it gives you a number expiration date and security code to enter where you would put in your normal card number. If anyone attempts to use that number. Busted.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Paypal's dispute resolution is good for absolutely zero.
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I don't know about that. I had a guy file a completely fraudulent claim, I provided PayPal with ample evidence to prove that it was a completely fraudulent claim... and they still refunded every cent of the transaction. I'm out my merchandise and the entire amount of the transaction, PLUS fees. This is after over 10 years of accepting thousands of PayPal payments without a single claim, ever.

So, it appears you can successfully cheat or be cheated by anyone and PP will happily help out.
 
EdFred said:
Discover card offers throw away numbers for online purchases - which is what I use now after getting hit after an online purchase. Log into your account, request a throwaway number, and it gives you a number expiration date and security code to enter where you would put in your normal card number. If anyone attempts to use that number. Busted.
Click to expand...

A lot of credit card companies do that.
I have used the temporary numbers in the past. The one I use also alows you to put in a max credit limit. Then you can set credit limit to the amount of the purchase you are making.
 
Norman said:
Gotta agree with that. Kroger's and another local chain's prices are tantamount to extortion. :mad2:
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Actually the way to fix that around here is via their fuel rewards program. Especially if you have a diesel truck that holds 35 gallons or more. I've been tempted to install a 100 gallon bed tank in place of the toolbox, just to really screw them. :) They'd probably catch on and cap the benefit at 50 gallons or some such.

Look at the chain's website for other details. Like gift card purchases getting double fuel points. In one trip to the grocery store I took $1/gal off my next diesel fill up and got half the Christmas shopping done. I'm still debating whether I'll take the two five gallon diesel cans with me at that fill up. :) Minor inconvenience vs saving $10? I'll probably do it. ;)

This particular chain used to really screw up. Gift cards FOR THE GROCERY STORE used to do that.

LOL. Buy gift card, buy groceries with gift card. Double fuel points. Ha. They stopped that one this year. :)

They also used to have the same price for cash/debit vs credit on the fuel and it was already low. Many folks miss that cash/debit vs credit card thing now, and think the price on the pretty sign out front is the price they pay when they swipe their card. Use your regular credit card, you're paying more than the station across the road.

I love analyzing convoluted marketing schemes to see where their weaknesses are. It's fun being cheap.
 
By the way, there's an easy fix for debit cards if you need one. Tie the card to an account that never has more money in it than you need for the debit transaction and keep it at a separate institution than your main checking account/savings account. Only fund it with what you need on the debit card.

Any credit union will be happy to open an account for you to do it, and the vast majority have no checking fees. Don't even bother to order checks for it.

If... And only if... You can get it in writing that your other accounts will never be utilized to fund an overdraft on the debit card account (rare: almost impossible to get) you can do it at the same institution. I wouldn't even attempt it.
 
I don't do Kroger, and only use the other local chain store for meat and produce. The rest I get at Wally World for a far better price.

For gas, I almost always pay cash, and yes, I make sure I get the cash discount.

Have I said I hate marketing games? That local chain keeps 'moving the furniture' so you have to search. They're hoping you'll buy something else while you're looking. :mad2::mad2:
 
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