Attempted card fraud

[Joanne Yannetta]

Hi
Ive recently had a lady email requesting 8 facial treatment for her friends, who are coming for her sisters wedding. We agreed dates and times and i advised there would be a 50% deposit to secure the appointments. Ive not met this person, nor has she had any treatment in my clinic, thus i think it fair to request the desposit.
Anyway she did get back to me saying she was happy to pay the deposit but was currently in intensive care having treatment and had been advised not to speak on the phone. This obviously rang alarm bells, but i kept the response polite and suggested that a family member could manage her request as being in ICU, she would be very incapacitated! I also told her i couldn't take a credit card payment over the phone, but she was welcome to make a bank transfer.
Her response back was to suggest i set up an account with Stripe Merchant - she would pay the fee - see promised!!.
i told her i wasn't prepared to do this and that i would be happy to provide gift vouchers on payment by a family member and she could give these out personally.

Ive been racking my brains as to what type of fraud she could exact on my business and it has been suggested that somehow monies paid into this new account would be diverted to hers (assuming its female)

Anyway apart from the usual request, her English was questionable, considering her name was very English sounding

 

[BannerPenguin]

Very common scam.

Had it in the print and web sector for years and comes in different forms. It's always a planned card reversal or the most common one for me is they send an enquiry with a simple job and large budget and say do you take debit/credit card and say they also need to pay their 'graphic designer' who doesn't take card. You can charge the card they give you for the cost of my services plus the graphic designer and then send the graphic designer his money. It's all very sketchy and of course, the graphic designer is probably an untraceable account from the person contacting you.

They often say stuff like in hospital/ill/deaf so can't speak on the phone.

 

[Joanne Yannetta]

Thanks for your response, this has helped greatly. needless to say, ive heard nothing further, thus i assume they will be moving onto the next business.
Im pleased i followed my gut on this..as they say, if it sounds too good to true, it probably Is!!

Anyway i wanted to flag it up on here to make people aware!!

 

[user 111574]

Well done for following your instinct on this one.
It's a good reminder to us all to be on our toes...