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Hi everyone. I wanted to share a case of fraud I just ran into. About a month ago there was a charge on a client’s credit card for $1500 for Bloomingdales. He is high net worth and because there was a credit back to the account a few days later for the same amount, I just categorized it as clothes and didn’t think much of it. Until, a few days later I got a letter from Bloomingdales telling me that they had received our return and refunded the purchase. I hadn’t seen one of those letters before so I asked him about it in our next meeting and he and his assistant both said they hadn’t bought anything. We called Bloomingdales and they told us that the item was returned to them and it was a woman’s fur lined coat and had been bought online. Odd, because he is a single man and he lives in Florida. We called UPS and were told that the shipping address was my address (his billing address), but that the shipper had called to change the address. The whole thing was strange and even Bloomingdales said it doesn’t sound like fraud because they shipped it to the billing address. Client decided not to cancel his card. Today, I am updating his Quicken and see a purchase for $850 at Michael Kors and another 10 days later for $1100 at Moda Operandi. I was meeting with him and so I asked him about it. Neither were purchases he made. Michael Kors couldn’t tell us anything about the charge as they said they couldn’t find one with his name and card number but Moda Operandi told us that they found the charge and the people didn’t even use his correct first name, but the charge was approved by the credit card company. They said that it seemed to be happening a lot lately and what happens is the person orders the package and has it shipped to the billing address, but once it is shipped, they call UPS and change the delivery address. The Moda Operandi shipment is still in route and since they discovered last week that this was happening, they stopped allowing their shipments to be rerouted to other addresses. They tell me it is happening with Mastercards and they believe mastercard was hacked. One of the strange things about this is that it isn’t the typical pattern where they charge as much as they can as fast as they can. They are doing one charge every 10-14 days, as if they think we wouldn’t notice it. Being in the holiday season, lots of our clients will be shopping online. Just make sure you are reviewing all of their purchases with them.
Caitlin,
What a story! This illustrates the value of a DMM for our clients. This is also a good reminder to all of us to scrutinize our clients bills and not assume any charges are “normal.” Thanks for sharing.This is a good story to share with clients and the general public if you have such a forum. It’s a new wrinkle…scammers are so devious!
Just sent an email to all my clients reminding them that I count on them to also review their statements or better yet online activity. Thanks so much, Caitlin!
Thank you so much for sharing! That’s very tricky of them to change the address later.
I recommend to everyone I talk to that they set up “alerts” on all credit cards and accounts so that they get an email or text for every transaction. It’s so much easier to catch a fraudulent in the moment rather than to try and dig around to remember whether a purchase was made a few weeks later when the statement comes in. Also, a lot of times the description on the credit card statement isn’t clear.
I’ve caught fraudulent charges twice this way when the credit card did not catch it. Also, I set this up for my mom and she caught fraudulent charges within 2 months of me setting it up for her.
I agree with Kendra that setting up credit card “alerts” is extremely easy and effective. The “fraud” we caught after we set this up for my father-in-law years ago was with the caregiver herself…she charged $700 for her root canal to his card and later explained to us that she “had an arrangement” with my father-in-law. (She did not). We might have viewed that as a normal charge at his dentist, if viewing it on his credit card statement later. In this case, the charge alert came through on a day when had gone into the ER and been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. The immediate feedback in this instance made all the difference in our realizing the broader abuse that was happening under our noses.
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