A precious metals customer offers purchasing services to anyone looking to sell their previous metals. A customer reached out with hopes to sell their product to our client. Our client sent the customer a label in order for the goods to be mailed in, and the package was insured. Through our investigation, we discovered that this address has a long history of purchasing items from high end retailers, and then submitting returns right after receiving the products.
The scheme employed by this particular fraud ring is that they manipulate the shipping label to an address near the intended recipient. This results in a package showing as delivered, but our client would not receive it, but still be responsible for filing and claim, and reimbursing the customer for their loss. We were not only able to identify the fraud ring, but we uncovered the address the package was sent to. The package was recovered and confirmed to not have ever contained the items the customer purported to have sent in. Another loss avoided. Avoiding these losses also makes our client less of a target as fraudsters will typically hit companies where they have had success.
