Business Opportunities Weblog

April 13, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Star News:

The Better Business Bureau warns small business owners that reports of scammers plying their trade through telephone relay services — typically used by the hearing impaired to make phone calls — are cropping up all across the country.

BBB has received reports from many types of businesses that received suspicious orders through TTY or telephone relay services. These services are meant to assist the hearing impaired in making telephone calls and often rely on an operator who relays a typed message from the caller to the business. Because, by law, the operator is not allowed to disclose the origin of the call, this service allows the scammers to hide their identity.

The scam being employed over telephone relay is a variation on an overpayment scam. A business receives an order from a customer over the phone through a telephone relay service. The customer will explain that the delivery service they’d like to use won’t take credit cards and asks that the business wire money to the shipper and simply tack the cost onto the overall order and charge their credit card for the total amount.

Any money wired to the supposed shipper, will actually end up in the hands of the customer/scammer and the credit card number provided is stolen. Not only does the business suffer the loss of the goods or services ordered by the scammer, it will also lose whatever money was wired to the phony delivery service.

Photo by mokra.

In Advice, Crime, Scam | 1 Comment