Fraudulent Orders an Ongoing Problem

Perpetrators of fraudulent order schemes are increasingly sophisticated, as evidenced by the frequency and variety of scams reported by ABA member bookstores. Unfortunately there is no hard and fast rule for identifying a fraudulent order, but booksellers are being urged to err on the side of caution and to train all staff to beware of the variety of schemes.

Among the most easily identifiable scams are orders originating in Nigeria or another African nation for large numbers of medical books, textbooks, technical books, or bibles. A stolen credit card is usually offered as the means of payment. Most recently, however, booksellers have reported receiving fraudulent orders for popular trade titles, sometimes with expedited shipping, and with domestic billing and shipping addresses. The orders come in by phone and fax and through store's websites.

BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos has warned BookSense.com stores that "while international orders for large numbers of Bibles and medical texts still need to be avoided, you should also now widen your radar to include orders that may seem suspicious to you for other reasons.... If an unknown customer several states away is ordering multiple copies of one or more titles with expedited shipping, you should question it. Communicate with the customer, and communicate with the bank."

Vlahos encourages booksellers to contact BookSense.com staff for a second opinion if they have doubts about a particular order, although BookSense.com cannot be a final authority on which orders are fraudulent and which are not.

ABA members also frequently report receiving bogus orders coming in over teletype relay services designed to allow hearing-impaired people to communicate over the telephone.

To help employees understand relay scams and to provide an appropriate response, Molly Seamans, the assistant manager of Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, put together a relay call reference sheet, which is shown to all new employees when they join the staff, and a dialog sheet, which is taped near the telephones at the store's information desk. The store has found that these reference sheets significantly cut down the time required to properly handle a relay call. Seamans and Harvard Book Store owner, Frank Kramer, have allowed BTW to share their reference sheet and dialog copy with our readers at news.bookweb.org/read/3273.