Don’t be SCAMMED this is important

Don’t be SCAMMED this is important

Phil Biundo Phil Biundo

Phil Biundo

At Filmar.com I Buy Sell End of Life Corporate IT Assets. What is your IT equipment worth?

Published Jan 16, 2020
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Have you ever received an email like this:

“Dear Traders, Beware of [company name]. When you buy from them and send them money, you’ll never get your products and then suddenly can’t contact them anymore. Then they won’t answer your emails or take your calls. Soon, you lose all your money. Please share this information with your customers.”

Or this:

“It has been brought to our attention that there may be individuals operating in the marketplace impersonating [company name] in order to perpetuate fraud.”

You’d be surprised how often I get these emails. This next one is especially tricky because it could be legit, depending on your business.

“The customer is willing to place a big order but needs sample units first and is not willing to pay for the samples upfront. This is going to be an issue because the sample units are going to be quite expensive.”

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Whatever your business and wherever you live, scam artists are out there, waiting to take advantage and siphon away your hard-earned revenue. They regularly change their alleged business names, aliases and even their scamming methods to avoid getting caught. But I’ve learned a few tricks in my years about spotting scam artists and I want to provide you with the knowledge and confidence you’ll need to remain scam-free. Below are some tools, tips and resources to help you curtail any future losses.

Here are a few more common scams:

  • You pay someone and then don’t receive anything.
  • You buy AC adapters or batteries that turn out to be counterfeit.
  • A product’s condition turns out to be misrepresented. For instance, you were promised
  • Grade A or B, but what you got was junk.
  • The deal you signed up for turns out to be significantly not-as-described. You try to remedy it with the seller but they stop answering your phone calls and responding to emails.
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Scammers often purchase a domain name similar to yours. They might even take your exact same name but use a .net, .org, or .us, instead of .com. A scam site might link its reviews to your site to make it seem legit. Then when customers Google your company, your reviews will come up. The customer feels comfortable even if the deals seem too good to be true, so they start placing orders on the fraudulent site. The scam site takes the order, but nothing ships out. Soon you start getting calls for order statuses you can’t locate.

Read more details of the scam here.

This next scam is the most popular one. You order all “Grade A,” “New,” or “Refurbished” products, but when they show up at your dock, they’re all wrong, or it’s all junk. I won’t say you should have gone out and inspected the products yourself, because I‘ve hand-tested each product in an order, then had the boxes swapped during shipping. I probably missed a few but if you come across any other scams, let me know so we can protect other traders. You might not have come across these issues yourself, but it could be worth your while to have some contacts and tools at your disposal when scoping out new customers and vendors. I also have more tricks in my E-book to help you circumvent cheating and get inspections performed on the cheap.

The evolving scam

Scam deals typically start with a phone call or email. Look closely at the email and the associated domains to get a sense of how serious the request is. Keep in mind, scam artists are going to be slippery. They love to use tricky domain names and fake social media accounts. They’ll even build websites to try to convince you they’re legit. When you talk on the phone with a possible scammer, it’s a good idea to jot down the number they called from. Reverse phone lookups and simple Google searches can help fill in missing information to verify a company.

When determining if a buyer is safe or a scam, consider if their reviews are real or fake. Scamadviser.com is a good tool for assessing the risk of third-party websites. This tool saves you time authenticating domains. Scamadviser uses an algorithm to authenticate reviews, as well as determine if a website is legit or a front for phishing, and if a seller is peddling fake products.

Two important things to consider here are

1) was the domain name registered recently?

2) how long until the domain name expires?

Scammers are not going to register a domain name years in advance. Scam domains are usually registered recently. Next, look closer at the email. Does it have a signature, address, phone number, fax? Try to verify some of those details on your own. If they have Skype, WhatsApp or social media contacts, check them out and connect with them. Do those accounts look legit? When did the user last write a post? Use Google Maps to verify addresses, and zoom in using Street View to check out the building. Another verification hack I’ve found useful is calling neighboring businesses and asking about a business I’m suspicious of. How long have they been there? What type of unit are they in? Ask if trucks roll in and out of the location. You’d be surprised how much info people give out to strangers.

Counterfeit products are fakes or unauthorized replicas

Counterfeit products are another big problem in our industry — everything from batteries to AC adapters. Some of you probably know this a big problem and don’t care because counterfeiting means cheap products. But counterfeit products can cause an end-user’s computer to fail, catch fire or worse, explode. Needless to say, this can lead to very high return rates for you and your resellers.

Detecting counterfeit products or fakes can be difficult. RAM modules, hard drives, power adapters and batteries can be verified with the manufacturer, though it’s a time-consuming process. And checking with a manufacturer is really only feasible if you have a very specific need and must be 100% sure an item is legit. So here’s a quick hack to find out if your adapter or battery is legit. Get out a scale and weigh the original and the potential fake. The fake will always weigh less than the original.

Payment time

So you’re ready to pay and you’re feeling good about the deal. Now comes time to pay. I know what you’re going to say: wire transfer only. But I want to tell you that if the funds were obtained and transferred illegally, they can be reversed by your bank or the originating bank for up to one year.

Wire transfers seem to be the favorite method for scammers these days. Good companies take credit cards and charge fees to do so. If a seller insists on wire-only, further investigation on your part is needed.

There is too much material to go over in one blog post, but I go over ACH payments, Paypal and credit card payments scams in detail in my E-book (which I highly recommend reading because there is a lot to learn about ACH and the capabilities of reversals and chargebacks).

Who can help me?

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Depending on the type of scam and the legalities of your county, state or country, I would contact a few agencies along with your local police. But first, I recommend consulting with your attorney to see what your options are. You must find a good attorney. If you need help finding an attorney anywhere in the globe, download my E-book. I’ll show you where to find them and how to keep them accountable as you track down buyers and sellers. Here are some other tools and processes you should put in place to avoid becoming a victim yourself.

According to the Better Business Bureau’s investigative project Scam Studies, millions of people fall victim to scams each year. Take some time to check out the content there, which is very informative and should keep you updated on the latest scamming techniques. Also, check out the BBB’s Scam Tracker, where you can see all its reports.

There are some methods to slow down a scam, but it will take hard work and it’s best to get ahead of the problem. So here are two tips to help make your online presence a little more bulletproof:

  • Register all variations of your domain name — .net .org, .us, with dashes and without.
  • Trademark your domain name. That way you can get the domain’s registrar to take down
  • any infringing domains.

I’m sure I missed a scam or two but I’ll leave you with a starting point and some additional links and search tools. Come back often because I’ll be updating this list and adding some content to make sure you’re aware of future cons.

Social Media

Online Review Sites

Environmental, Health, and Safety Compliance

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There is a lot here and if you think I missed one leave a comment below and we can add it.

At Filmar.com I Buy Sell End of Life Corporate IT Assets is an expert on the secondary market of IT products. Specialties include used and off-lease refurbished computer products, laptops, computers, LED LCD TVs, digital cameras, electronics, unlocked phones, tablets and enterprise IT equipment.

These are my observations and my opinions but I would love to hear more about your frustrations

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