How Do You Pull Yourself Out of the Pit?

Some of you may remember my story about credit card fraud which you can read here.    Two men charged a few thousand dollars for jewelry at our store and then called their credit card company and 'reported' that they were never in the store.  The credit card company gave them their money back which means they have the merchandise plus their refund.  I spent over 30 hours on the phone (mostly on hold) over the course of a few days fighting this and was finally able to connect with a supervisor in Visa's fraud department.  What he told me was shocking!

Credit card companies will always side with the cardholder -- even when it is a fraudulent card.  It is the 'rule of law' initially set up.  Going to court to fight that decision would only be a waste of time and money.  The agent was apologetic but explained that is the law and there is nothing we can do about it.  The first time this happened to us, it cost us $6,000.  Now.....it happened again.  These thieves hit several stores in our small town the same day -- we are all up the proverbial creek.  Does that seem fair?

In the meantime, we sold a guitar amp on eBay which we hoped would help recoup our losses.  The buyer decided he did not want to keep it and sent it back but didn't pack it well and this is how it arrived.

Are You Immune to Credit Card Fraud?

Every morning, the first thing I do on the computer is to check my bank accounts.  In the business account for our store, I was horrified to see a reversal of $2,300 by a credit card company.  It took some time to figure out that three weeks earlier the two young men who made purchases in our store had used a fraudulent card.  They spent a long time making a decision on what they purchased and chatted at length about their families.

We checked their driver licenses to be sure the name matched with the cards and the purchases went through without a hitch.  Even harder to believe is one of the men stayed in contact with us via email for two weeks organizing his next purchase for a custom-made ring.  Why would he give me his IP address and his name if he was scamming us?  They must have known that it would take three weeks before the credit card payment would be reversed.