After 10 years you would think I would remember to get everyone trained, but you just can’t. Every couple of years one of these outfits gets one of my employees to “confirm” an order we never placed. In March, POS SUPPLIES called our shop and talked to a cook. I have had to do the whole series of calls and faxes with the company prior to going to the BBB and the AG of the state in question.
For years there have been Upstate NY ripoff artists selling cash register tape and thermal paqper using deceptive selling practices. They call and get any employee on the phone and say something like they are “confirming shipping information for an order”. They employee says “yep, that is the right address” they say, “so we are good to ship?” and the employee says “looks like it.” The company in question this time ships out of NY but the invoice address is in Florida. On the SE FL BBB site they are already listed with grade of “F”…
What happens next is that they send you about $30 worth of paper that you did not order and send you an invoice for $200. When you protest they eventually send the invoice to a collection agency.
So what do you do?
Contact the BBB where these crooks are located and in yoour own area.
Contact the Attorney General in the state where they are located.
You will find that the BBB and the AG both have on line complaint forms.
Tell all your employees to refer all phone calls about ordering ANYTHING to you or your ordering manager and make sure those people know about this scam. In my experience it tends to involve paper products… but you never know.
They have no information on your company or you and you have no obligation to pay them. I have argued with them a few times over shipments that the want to charge me for and nothing has ever come from it. I’ve never paid them a penny and have never had my credit dinged. They’ll send threatening letters and call nonstop(have fun with these phone calls!!!) but thats as far as it ever gets. I’m sure in the future another one of my employees will be a bonehead and “authorize” them to ship the package, but I’ll never pay them a penny. I’ll offer to put a return UPS label on the package if they would like to send me one.
Yep, this is about the 4-5th time in 10 years. Every time it happens all my employees hear about it and know what to do. A couple of years later, one of these companies will get someone else to authorize the shipment that was not working for me the last time.
I agree, never pay them anything. I did have one send me to collection once. I notified the collection agency that the invoice was in dispute and to get lost. I also told them they might want to represent a company that was not commiting fraud.
I’ve never paid them and never had them turn it over to a collection agency. A few years back someone linked a copy of some sort of “wanted” notice for the owner of this company from a state attorney general’s office… I held onto for a while and faxed a copy to them whenever they burned us. I’m sure the last place they want to be is in a court of law.
The one calling our store was Red Wood Paper out of NY.
Here is the thing though…none of us are required to pay. I mean I just simply told them the fellow they talked to didn’t have the authority to make a purchase. Additionally, after about two months they sent me another bill, this one with lat charges, I called got some guy who barley spoke english telling me to call back tomorrow. I did, I told them that the purchase wasn’t authorized, additionally I told them I shipped the product back (which I never did!) the girl put me on hold then said ohh yes I see here in your file that we did receive the shipment back, she zeroed by account. Hell I should have asked her to send me shipping charges…lol…I didn’t want to press my luck. haven’t heard for them since.
Anyways, everyone that answers my phones, no matter who the caller is, is told to never confirm "shipping info, they are to take a number & will have the manager call them back! Works pretty good.
Still not sure how they send you to collections though…
-Doug
Redwood Paper is the one that we dealt with about 2-3 years ago and the one that referred the account to collections when we did not pay the bill.
How they refer to collections is easy. It is ust like what most of us do with bad checks, you simply give the info to a collection agency and they go to work. There is no requirement that t a bill turned over to collections be ligit.
On the other hand, when a collections agency is notified that the bill is in dispute they must stop collections activity.
you know what I hate is the people calling and hinting they are with the federal compliance division and are sending someone to my shop to see if I have the NEW compliance up (if not they will send me one for 249.99)
I printed mine off the puter today & I’m wating for the first crook to show up at my place to sell them to me. I will act like…“Yeah, I know I need them…how much are you selling them for? OMG - $249.99 S*** that’s a freaking bargin, I just bought these off of another outfit that stoped by the other day…and they cost me $500.00, you should have been here sooner”. heheheeee
Yep, I imagine most of us have had this happen. We have multiple stores so we get it more often. Usually we just take the box and “return to sender”. sometimes, and I wish it was all the time, we report to the home state AG. I think it is important to do this otherwise these guys just skate through scam after scam. This is a little heavy but I have always remembered the quote…“all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”. It is just part of life to have to continually be aware of and fight the frauds among us. If we don’t resist and do what we can to fight back then we are simply helping to foster more of the same.
