A Very Clever Criminal, True Story...

[Joe Canadian]

This happened today at work. It’s a bit long but interesting story IMHO

 

“Mr. X” phones a small tire shop located in a resort area of Vancouver, BC, looking for a set of four Michelin tires that cost about $300 a piece. The clerk tells “Mr X” that they only have two in stock but they could get the other two in a few hours.

 

Mr X tells the clerk that he needs them right away, and provides a name and contact information.

The clerk gets the tires and phones Mr X, who sounds thrilled but it’s a bit too busy to drop by and pay for the tires in person. Mr X gives the clerk his complete name, address, phone number and credit card information over the phone.

 

The clerk runs the credit card number and the transaction, about $1500.00 taxes in, goes through, no problem. Mr X then tells the clerk that he will get a courier to pick up the tires for him.

 

Mr X calls a courier company at virtually cut off time and demands a same day pick up. He gives his name and address but requests the shipping and import charges (over $2000) be billed to a third party. He provides the courier company with a valid corporate account number of a large Customs Brokers Company who does a lot of business with this particular courier.

 

The courier company dispatches a driver and e-mails or faxes (not sure about this part) Mr X some customs forms to be filled out. The tires are heading to Accra, in Ghana, but they must go through the US first.

 

Mr X fills out the customs forms, and faxes them to the clerk at the tire shop. He then calls the shop and tells the clerk to just hand them over to the courier who will be doing the pickup.

The courier shows up, writes a waybill and gets the clerk to sign the waybill. The tires are on their way to Ghana.

 

The courier is running late, gets delayed in traffic and the tires do not make the plane on time. They have to wait for the next flight which leaves the following morning.

The next morning a clerk at the courier’s office checks the tires, goes through the paperwork and notices some discrepancies. Mr X has written “France” as the country where the tires are manufactured: The commercial invoice and the tires themselves say “Made in the USA”.

 

The clerk phones Mr X to get him to re-write the customs form, fix the mistake and fax the forms back to him. Mr X does not answer his phone, so the clerk phones the Tire Shop and talks to the manager. The manager calls Mr X to no avail and decides to wait. No big deal, the tires are paid for, no rush.

 

A few hours later the manager gets a phone call from a VISA rep in Atlanta, Georgia, letting him know that the transaction would be reversed and cancelled since Mr X used a stolen credit card account number when purchasing the tires.

 

The manager panics but is able to get the courier company to hold the tires and return them to him. The courier company does a little phoning around and learns that the thirds party corporate account number and such, provided by Mr X to cover the shipping and export charges is correct but that nobody at this company has authorized it or knows who the hell Mr X is.

 

Mr X is a clever criminal, no doubt...

[little_old_man]

Yep, that's just a different version of one that happens down here a lot. It's always a rush order to get things shipped and by the time you figure it out there is no way to get the stuff back.

[Joe Canadian]

What is really interesting here is Mr X's perfect timing, his knowledge of legit credit card and corporate account numbers and his ability to fool everyone. The phone calls were apparently made from a computer but the caller ID at the tire shop, showed Mr. X fake name and "local" phone number. It makes you wonder how secure our personal credit info really is. Overnight shipments leave Canada pretty quickly and usually clear US Customs instantly. Had those tires made the very first plane, they would be gone forever as it took about 12 hours to figure out that something was wrong. Now, nobody knows who the hell Mr X is and where the calls really came from. He's pretty much untraceable.