Victims of phone scam stuck with shoddy office products
Scammers are calling businesses to get them to buy inferior office products.
One local business got one such phone call.
“These companies will call you, and they will get you to order inferior copier toner and paper, and things like that. And they send it out to you and it’s inferior,” said Lisa Calderwood of LCSW New Dawn Counseling. “And they are hoping that you’ll just pay for it, and you won’t know until later that it’s all garbage.”
Here’s how it works.
You work at a business and get a phone call from a person claiming to be a customer service representative. The scammer asks you for the model number of your copier.
The scammer is trying to get a recording of you agreeing to be helped, so the person can send you products you don’t want. By the time you realize that, you won’t be able to return the items.
Samantha Gillihan of the Better Business Bureau said there are things you can do.
“And so (here are) a couple of things for businesses to keep in mind. Have a designated person in the office that deals with all sales call, so that no matter what the caller says, they talk to one person all the time,” said Gillihan. “Get the name and number of that company and do some research. You can go to bbb.org. The Better Business Bureau has information on their accreditation, their rating, customer reviews, complaints. And we can check and see if the business is required to have a licensing, if they have it, things like that – things a business would need to know before working with someone.”
She said it’s important to have a person in the office who handles such calls.
And finally, that same person who you designate in the office to take all those service calls, have them be the one to review all those invoices,” she said. “This person should have a eye for detail, and something like that is going to save a business thousands of dollars from these phony kind of invoice scams.”
If you receive any of these types of phone scams, contact the Better Business Bureau.
