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Help Please

Ellis

Ellis

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Joined
Dec 16, 1998
Messages
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Dave Ellis here.Does anyone on this Forum know a Mark Hilliard of Lancashire,England?
I shipped him a couple of rare Emerson customs back in December,charged his credit card,verified the knives were received and signed for (they were).
I was just contacted by my credit card company that he disputes my using his credit card.....over four months after he received the knives and they charged back a substantial amount to my checking account.
Beware of dealings with this person.I would love to get a hold of him.
Thanks in advance,
Dave Ellis
http://www.exquisiteknives.com
 
Dave,
E-mail me. I am working closely on something else with a good friend with the Thames River Police in England. I am certain he would be more than happy to help.................Ira
wolfmann@attbi.com
 
Ira,

You the man, bud! These slimeballs don't stand a chance with you watching our backs. Hopefully I never will be in need off your assistance, but I respect your commitment to help those who do. Sic'em!
 
Mr Ellis,

You mean that your CC companay already returned him a part of the money??? When you have the bills and you can get a trace that the delivery was done??? This is outrageous. OK, he wants to practicly rob you and disputes the use of his CC. It does not mean they should accept it. If I were you I would return against your CC company. I do not belive that canceling a transaction after 4 months based on the other side story is entirely legal. Even if (hypoteticaly speaking) somebody used his CC to buy the knives, it is the insurance of the CC company who should cover, not you!
 
I really hate this sort of thing happening. It's what makes people stop shipping overseas.

Keep us posted Dave. Ira seems to have the right contacts :)

Roger
 
Dave does he know the name of your company account? What I mean is if he bought a knife from you and he know's you by one name will he see the same name on his CC statement.He may not recognize the charge. I'm not saying this is the case but it happen's. Mike
 
I'd like to give you guys a quick lesson in Credit Card rules as they pertain to merchants and chargebacks.

Here's what can and does happen:

1. Customer makes a purchase
2. Merchant ships product
3. Some amount of time passes by, most often less than 120 days, but I've had them come back as far out as 8 months !
4. Merchant checks bank balance and finds an amount of money missing.
5. A few days later, merchant receives notice that a chargeback has been instituted against them, and who is doing it, what amount, etc. (keep in mind, the money has already been pulled from the merchant's account)
6. Merchant must prove that delivery was made. This is more difficult than it seems. They won't necessarily accept tracking information, delivery confirmation, etc. , sometimes they won't accept signature confirmation.
7. If the merchant can prove that the product was delivered, they'll get the money back in a few weeks, or a month or so. If not, it's gone for good. Most of the time, it's gone for good.
8. Credit card companies are heavily biased towards the consumer in the consumer/merchant equasion, and I understand their reasons, but sometimes it really sucks that the money is never "really" yours.
9. By the way, if the chargeback is for let's say $1000.00 and the merchant's bank account has $700.00 in it, the merchant has $-300.00 and must immediately make up the difference...somehow.
10. If the merchant gets too many chargebacks, it's a percentage system, they loose their ability to accept credit cards.

We lose several thousand in chargebacks each year, sometimes it's our fault, sometimes it's not. It was many times that before we stopped shipping overseas.

This is the worst part of being in business today in my opinion. I hate it, but it's the only game in town.

P.S. the Credit Card companies NEVER pay for this, it's always on the merchant's hide, and this type of thing isn't covered by any type of insurance that I've been able to find.
 
I think this might have been a scam that I have seen before. At the last place I worked we recieved a call from a person living in England. This person was interested in buying a very expensive electronic component for his home theater. We negotiated for a couple of days and he decided that he would purchase the item. I aked him to send me a fax that included a the front and back scan of both the Visa card that he would be using and a drivers licence with picture. I also informed him that the drivers licence would have to have an address that matched the one that I was shipping the item to. I also required a letter of concent authorizing me to charge his credit card with the amount of the purchase plus shipping. The letter was to be signed and the signature would have to match that on the Visa card and the drivers licence.

The next day I received the fax and everything looked great, so I charged the amount to the card, it was approved and I sent the fella his gear. About 6 weeks later we got a letter from Visa stating that the customer whose Visa card was used stated that he had bought no such item and that an investigation was taking place and could we send them whatever information we had. I checked with the shipping company and got a copy of the signed weigh bill and sent that along with the fax that I received from england, to Visa. About a month later Visa informed us that the signature did not match the true owner of the card and that they were crediting him the full amount of the purchase and that we would have this amount taken from our account.

From what we gathered from the police it seems that whoever did this somehow got ahold of this persons Visa number and had fake cards made up. He also had a fake driver licence as well. This was well planned and it was suspected that it was done by a group that have been using this system to defraud foreign businesses for quite a while now.

Chances are you have run into a scam artist. I would not hold out a lot of hope that you will get your knives back or ever see a penny in return. I hope that I am wrong, but my gut feeling tells me that you have been screwed royally.
 
A personal friend "used to" own a small computer shop. He took a phone order for $10,000 in credit card orders and followed every requirement as established by the CC company, he shipped and was in heaven at such a large sale.

About three months later, he started getting collection calls. he turns out the CC was stolen, and the CC company froze his business account as he had far less than ten grand available in the bank. he fought the CC company but there was some very fine print about verifying a signature before shipping [or something silly] and he had to come up with about $8,000.

After this, none of his distributors allowed him "credit" and he folded. We checked the card all the way to Pittsburgh, PA where UPS delivered to an actual street address and a vehicle was waiting. the house was abandonned.

These guys are very, very good at what they do............

In this case, it does not sound like an organized scam artist, but someone who discovered how easy it is to commit this offense, especially across the "pond" and has done so.

This goes far deeper than just theft by deception and involves CC fraud. The CC Company's Loss prevention folks are supposed to assist in helper their merchants when this happens, BUT, BUT, BUT.......

Dave, if you have E-mailed me, I am having some trouble with the new ATTBI software and "outlook express" so I can't open my mail. But it will be fixed today....I am gonna be laid up again late today thru???? so if you E-mailed me, I will call my buddy in england and see what turns up. But light a fire under the CC company to get their people moving on this, as this fits the general pattern they are very acustomed to and can help you prove shipping very quickly........Ira
 
Hello all,Dave Ellis here.Thanks very much for all of your support.
I spent all day yesterday and last evening compiling evidence against this Mark Hilliard.Today I faxed along with all UPS verification and lo and behold the UPS signature on delivery matched his signature on his credit card,I am getting my $3200 back (so they tell me).
Please let me know if I can be of assistance to anyone who has dealt with this POS.
Be safe all and thanks again,
Dave Ellis,ABS,M.S.
http://www.exquisiteknives.com
 
A friend was scammed good by a gang that used the following MOO:

A man would show up at his shop (he has a chain of 4) and make a relatively big purchase (not huge – but substantial) pay with a CC and show a passport to support his identity.

A call must be made to the CC Company for verification – and he did that. They ask you all kind of questions to make sure the CC is really the legit owner – like height, age, sex etc. this is done in a yes no manner – as so not to insult the client that is waiting for his CC to be approved.

All goes well the CC is not reported as stolen – and they approve the sale.

This happens few times – but my friend gets suspicious – why – he is a smart fellow and his instincts tell him something is wrong. Why? The purchase get bigger and bigger as time goes by - and its always small and expensive items – like films, batteries etc.

So he calls the CC Company and gives them a detailed report. They say – YES – we know the drill – turns out this method is being used on many occasions…

A group of tourist bus drivers take their tourists for all kinds of tours – and when attending certain places, persuade the tourists to “leave the stuff behind and avoid the hassle of carrying it around” they do so, and the driver then calls his co-conspirator – and they look through the bags – find a CC and a passport that the image in resembles the friend – and he goes shopping with it.

This is where it gets tricky! They return the CC and the passport to the bag and the poor tourist does not know they were taken away and used until he gets the huge charge after going back home – this could be a month or two later!

The end of this story is good –my friend – along with the CC Company arranged a set up and caught the members of the gang – but I am sure these still happen elsewhere.

The lesson is simple – always carry ON YOUR PERSON your CC and passport.
 
Glad to hear you'll get your money back. Too bad scum like that ruin the reputation of knifelovers overseas. I hope he pays for what he did.
 
I had a similar thing happen, but it wasn't really the customer's fault. The customs inspectors of his country helped themselves to about half of his shipment. I am very wary of any overseas purchasing because of that, and have had customers overseas send me MO's instead. That works for me, and a good customer won't mind it. My website won't process overseas cards now because of it, and I'm glad.
 
Robert - this may seem a solution - but we - living outside the states - have to come up with all kinds of tricks to get stuff to us...and this sucks.

It’s hard enough to pay that extra shipping, wait for so long and pay customs - that we don’t have to be blocked completely...

I personally don't have a problem - as many of the makers and dealers know me and will do business with me (yeah - they love taking my money...) but your average knife collector or first time buyer may be deterred completely by this attitude...

Solution? I don't have one, maybe get some one you know (like me) to recommend his friend?

The BF and the Usual Suspect Forum - to name just two - are also good places to ask about potential buyers...

Oh - another thing - MO are not such a good solution...I once sent Jake Evans 200 $ for a job he did for me...I paid 25$ for it in Israel - and he also had to pay an extra 20$ for it...so we wound up paying 45$ to transfer 180....

This is why I was one of the first intl. users of Paypal...
 
This REALLY sucks! I've been buying some of my knives from overseas, simply because they cannot be had in the U.S. I hope my trader still thinks I'm a viable customer:( !
 
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