High Dollar Inquiry from no where

[bcpcsolutions]

So I get an email today to my personal business account (not easily available on website, only business cards) from a guy a few hundred miles from me looking for 10 business class laptops. I entertained it thinking that it wasn't going to lead to anything and now he wants to go ahead and place the order and give me credit card details (~$9K).

The guys grammar leaves little to be desired but it's certainly not any sort of robot. He hasn't answered my question pertaining to how he heard about us or my request for company name and address.... No way this is real, right?

In an attempt to protect myself I tried sending an invoice via PayPal but he says he'd prefer to give me CC details over the phone...

I have never done a transaction like this and am very skeptical and want to make damn sure i'm safe here.... Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

[Markverhyden]

Almost guaranteed a fraud until proven otherwise. Phone number? Business name and address? Email from the business domain? I'd love to see the email.

 

[HawkinsPC]

Google some of the e-mail message and see if anything pops up. I get weird spam emails from people wanting stuff like that on occasion.

 

[Mainstay]

Sounds like a scam using a stolen CC. I wouldn't get involved or take the risk.

Give him a referral to a store nearer him so that they can "support" it better post-sale.

 

[BlackLabTechs]

Sounds very much like the ones a client of mine get in the retail industry. No doubt a stolen card number. You'll find those laptops for sale in a dark alley somewhere for $100 ea.

 

[mraikes]

Not even close to legitimate - you know that!

What's so special about your shop that would draw the interest of someone "a few hundred miles away". It's not as if you're in the middle of Nowhere Alaska where a few hundred miles constitutes the closest civilization. You're within a stone's throw of some pretty large metro areas.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Sounds very much like the ones a client of mine get in the retail industry. No doubt a stolen card number. You'll find those laptops for sale in a dark alley somewhere for $100 ea.

Aw some.....not that low, $250 each. Just some room for bargain for his "cash 'n carry special!"

To the OP...yeah I'd forget it. Sometimes those "too good to be true" things really are...too good to be true!

You could have some fun with the guy...take down the CC info, jot down his phone number, go ahead and call into your CC clearing on the phone and run it...and run it again in another couple of days if it passes the first time you call.

 

[JoeTech]

When we get calls or emails like that, we tell them we don't take CC info over the phone. They will have to come pick up the laptops and pay in person. That always weeds out the scammers.

 

[nlinecomputers]

So I get an email today to my personal business account (not easily available on website, only business cards) from a guy a few hundred miles from me looking for 10 business class laptops. I entertained it thinking that it wasn't going to lead to anything and now he wants to go ahead and place the order and give me credit card details (~$9K).

The guys grammar leaves little to be desired but it's certainly not any sort of robot. He hasn't answered my question pertaining to how he heard about us or my request for company name and address.... No way this is real, right?

In an attempt to protect myself I tried sending an invoice via PayPal but he says he'd prefer to give me CC details over the phone...

I have never done a transaction like this and am very skeptical and want to make damn sure i'm safe here.... Any help would be very much appreciated.

Get real dude. Why in the internet, Dell, amazon, newegg, Best Buy age would ANYONE who isn't already a client of yours want to buy laptops from someone they've never done business with? Get real. It is a scam and you will get robbed if you do it. Toss in the trash and move on.

 

[phaZed]

Along with the others... keep in mind that YOU will be on the hook for the charge-backs.. so you might as well just buy $9K in laptops now and give them away as an advertising promotion. Not with a 10 foot pole, this one.

 

[bcpcsolutions]

Thanks all for helping reconfirm. I pressed once again for company names and address but finally he must have given up.

Still no idea how we managed to get my personal business email..

 

[cypress]

Have you posted on any advertising sites? Maybe he could have gotten it from somewhere like that.

 

[nlinecomputers]

It's a spammer. They can harvest names from hacks done on other people's address books. Much of this is automated. Only when the OP responded did a real human step in.

 

[Rosco]

I am pretty sure this happened to another person on here 2 or 3 years back. If(and thats a big if) i remember correctly they got a charge back. Dont do it. (k would be nice but not if you are on the hook!

 

[mikeroq]

Totally a scammer. Just delete it.

 

[gadgetfixup]

Reminds me of a scammer that sends me an email about once a week. Changes up his address and phone number once in a while

 

[TAPtech]

No real person has ever ended an email with "Warm Regards" and on the extremely rare person someone puts "Best regards" at the bottom, I suspect them of being a scammer from Nigeria.

 

[cypress]

Any updates?

 

[gadgetfixup]

No real person has ever ended an email with "Warm Regards" and on the extremely rare person someone puts "Best regards" at the bottom, I suspect them of being a scammer from Nigeria.

I better change my signatures, they all end in Kind regards or Best regards :O

 

[TAPtech]

I guess I can only speak for here in the Northeast USA. Seriously though, not a common signature phrase around here!