I have a customer who is requesting 300 blank white t-shirts in Gildan, Anvil, FOTL, and Hanes for a total of 1200 shirts.
The idea of making a lot of profit for a liitle work sounds enticing. However, I have never accepted credit cards since I mainly deal with school systems and local businesses. How can I guarantee that this is not a fraudelent order?
I have requested his contact information in two responding emails with no success. His emails are full of typos and grammactical errors. I know the old saying "If it acts like a duck and quacks like a duck.."
Furthermore, my website is not set up for SEO and is mainly for a resource for my local customers. How could he have found me? He claims to be in Champaign, Illinois. I am in Georgia.
This is the response from his last reply:
Thank you for the email.i can make payment via credit card for you to run your charges.and also i will like to know when they will be ready so i can send fedex to come and pick them up from your location as am sending it to an orphanage in west africa Ghana.. my company name is gradetraders LTD.. so let me know when the t-shirts will be ready for pick up after payment and also let me know when you are ready to run my credit cards..
i will wait for your email
Can someone give me some good advice? Is this common Internet business?
I couldn't tell from your question if you currently have a merchant account to process credit cards or not. If you do, you can get all the information from him and call your merchant account customer service and tell them you are concerned as to whether someone is trying to place an order with your company on a fraudelent card.
They will take the information and confirm whether or not the credit card number is issued to the individual name and address that you have on record.
I would be highly suspicious and would not fill the order unless I verified the card.
I would require enough of a down payment to cover my cost. I never do large orders withou 2/3 down. I make them think ,I"m getting half down , but I get 2/3 down .I then give a little discount when they pay at pick up or send me a check before shipping. I always get my money first. ..... JB
there are scams going on.. towards both sign companies and shirt makers alike..
they always claim to be for orphans.. churches.. feeding the poor .. or somthing to make you feel like they are for real..
they usually actually are not after the shirts..
they want to pay you with stolen charge cards.. then over pay you.. and have you pay the shipper (their buddy) cash.. so they end up makeing the money you pay the shipper.
We got a email. then a call from some like them (thru a operator for the deaf ... another common ploy) wanting 100 banners with the words *Jesus Loves You*... If you string them along.. they actually will agree to pay you much more than the products are even worth.. as long as they feel they will be able to cheat you..lol.. (granted they will never really pay you anything but fake charge cards)...
I tell people like this.. that i only deal in cash for big orders.. .. umm US Bills..
Yep it is definately a scam, do not respond to these people. There are a ton of these scammers out there and they will either try to pay with stolen credit cards or fake cashiers checks. Be very wary, I get these types of emails at least once a week. Please do not fall for this
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Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ~~~Mark Twain BobbieLee
Believe it or not.. one of the sign guys I know.. decided to play along with some scanners like this.. and told them things.. like instead of grommets.. because of the size of the banner they were gonna glue lifesavers (ya know the candy) to use instead.. and told them the banners would be 400 dollars each.. and on and on.. the scammers kept agreeing with everything this guy saids.. was really funny to read the emails..
This scam has been around for a long while. The most common form asks you to drop ship the shirts to an address that is near a port. It may be difficult to check on the card. The numbers they give you are typically identity theft results that are very recent, so the credit card company will "approve" the purchase.
Ways to protect yourself. Don't take credit cards over the phone for new customers. Customer must be present , have proper ID and have a matching signature. Require payment in advance and allow 3 to 5 days before ordering the merchandise, then check again with credit card processor.
These come up every few months. I suggest you don't bite. Checks aren't much safer unless drawn on a local bank. Try to cash the check, not deposit it. If you deposit it and it comes back NSF, they get a lot of you bank account info on the check that is returned.
We had that same call last month. we are in Eugene, Oregon and the guy wanted blanks sent to Vermont I think. He called everyday from a cell phone with a very bad connection. It's a scam. Don't do it.
We had that same call last month. we are in Eugene, Oregon and the guy wanted blanks sent to Vermont I think. He called everyday from a cell phone with a very bad connection. It's a scam. Don't do it.
Run from this and be sure not to give to much informationa bout your business. recently we saw a guy wanting 10,000 tees.. Where is he????? I guess he was just a one time poste and was too busy to get back on the forum.. mmmI wonder...
I had a call once while at my main job that was from a scammer. The scammer typed online and the operator read what he typed. He wanted about $6000 worth of product sent to Nigeria.
Thanks to all who have responded. Here is the original email sent to me from a Mark Grade of gradetraders Ltd:
Dear customer service,
I am Mr. Mark grade from gradetraders Ltd. I am writing in
regards to my interest in your products. I to make an order of some T-SHIRTS and
would appreciate getting a
quotes on a types below...
blink white t_shirt,
sizes: brands:
small anvil
mideum hanes
large fruit of the loom
GILDAN
and i will appreciate getting a quote on the types you have instock. If you could
so kindly reply to this email, I will be more than happy to do
businesswith you. I am looking forward to doing business with you in the near
future.
Sincerely,
Mark
By the way, I have emailed him back and informed him I made a mistake and the shirts are double the price. I am curious as to his response. If he responds, I plan to tell him I just shipped 10,000 shirts to the same orphanage he had planned to and not worry about sending them any.
A Questionable Customer 
