Warning! Restaurant credit card scam

[Robin Garr]

Email reprinted with permission:

Robin, this is Catrina H. from Dinner Is Done - Please inform other restaurants of this scam.

I received a relay call from a customer wanting a $3,000.00 order. He stated that he wanted to have the order sent to New York. He gave me a credit card number and paid for the transaction. He asked that I put an additional 951.00 on the card and wire the money to the person the was shipping the food to him. I told him he should call the shipper and give them his card so that they can do there own charging. He stated that they were having problems with their credit card company and they could not process the transaction. He asked that I process the transaction and send the 951.00 via western union the same day. I told him I could not wire any funds until the money was in my account.
He gave me a visa number at first and the card did not work, he gave me a discover and the transactions cleared..
I begin asking myself why would someone order food from Louisville to be flown to New York?? I decided to call Discover to see if the credit card he gave me was stolen. I spoke to the fraud unit, they said that the transaction I ran was already stopped and that the credit card was stolen. He stated that they are calling restaurant in the area and that people have actually wired money to these people. He stated that on Monday a restaurant wired $9,000.00 to them, what a loss

I thank God I did not wire any money or take a loss. Please let your clients on the restaurant forum know about this scam... If it sounds to good to be true it usually is.

They won't call them directly, they will use a relay caller. The person will give there operator numbers and state that you have relay call from a hearing impaired person. The operator will communicate via computer with you and the customer.

Catrina

Several of my members have contacted me about this recent scam. Restaurants, please be careful. If you are suspicious send them my way.

This appears to be a variation of other scams and cons listed at the Urban Legends Reference Pages:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/fraud.asp

Frequently Asked Questions about the site:
http://www.snopes.com/info/faq.asp

Last July, I received an email from a man wanting a wedding cake. Supposedly, he wanted a five tiered wedding cake, unassembled, ready to be picked up by a shipping company at a certain time on a certain day to be taken somewhere in Indiana. Because I've gotten stranger requests (and delivered cakes myself to Indiana), I emailed the man back asking further questions. But I am very very protective of my wedding cakes, so I asked quite a lot of questions. We exchanged several emails. The answers got stranger and stranger. When I expressed that I was also uncomfortable with a "freight" company handling one of my wedding cakes, he assured me that they were legit and had done this before, using a refrigerated truck. More alarm bells were set off when I asked for the name of the freight company, as well as a contact person and phone number. He replied with only the name of a company (that I could not find anywhere online), and a free generic email adress only. No contact person even. He also revealed that he wanted me to charge his credit card for the shipping companies fees ($800)as well as whatever I charged him. Then he wanted me to pay them when they picked up the cake. It became rather obvious at this point in time. So I flatly stated that he would have to pay them in advance himself and that furthermore I needed his own phone number (which I'd already requested twice) and address in order to draw up a proper contract before things went any further. He abruptly vanished into cyberspace. I still have the email exchange in my account.

Funny thing is, I learned from one of my bakers that someone had tried to scam the exact same amount with a similar scheme from a family member's gardening business. And then two months ago, I got an email identical to the request I got in July but sent under a different name. I quickly deleted it this time around.

This sounds like a very similar scheme to the one that Catrina mentioned, so I thought people should know to watch out for suspicious emails as well.

That scam has been going around for years with different businesses. We got it 3-4 years ago in the Bed and Breakfast biz and bakers all over the country are reporting it in the last year or so.

They never give up.

The scary thing is that some people actually fall for this nonsense, otherwise it wouldn't continue.

I did, however, earn $15 million from a Nigerian prince who needed to get his excess cash out of the country. I don't know how he found me on my Yahoo! address ....

I did, however, earn $15 million from a Nigerian prince who needed to get his excess cash out of the country. I don't know how he found me on my Yahoo! address ....

Perhaps you were being shadowed by his Louisville operative http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090203/NEWS01/902030398/1008/NEWS01

The scary thing is that some people actually fall for this nonsense, otherwise it wouldn't continue.

I did, however, earn $15 million from a Nigerian prince who needed to get his excess cash out of the country. I don't know how he found me on my Yahoo! address ....

TP,

I wasn't quite as fortunate...My Nigerian "Prince" (conveniently exiled in Houston TX) promised me of only 5 million if I would help him out. Poor feller, I was more than happy to oblige. He has assured me just today that the check is "in the mail" and that the over limit charges on my credit card are but a temporary inconvenience.