That customer in a big hurry could be a problem

I tend to be very trusting of my customers, I’ve had just a few bad experiences in over 100,000 transactions on Amazon Marketplace. (eBay and Half.com are another story, but no catastrophes.)

One thing I’ve noticed about the scammers, though, they tend to be in a big hurry. I’ve had several legitimate customers pay for overnight mail, but it’s also proved to be a reliable warning sign of a scammer, at least in my experience. I haven’t run into many crooks in this business, but nearly every one of them seemed to be in an awfully big hurry.

For anyone who says they needs next-day FedEx delivery for an expensive book, watch out. I’d avoid taking PayPal, and I’d wait for your Sold, Ship Now e-mail from Amazon. The odds are somebody in that big a hurry isn’t using their own credit card.

Apparently these scammers are even hitting brick-and-mortar booksellers now. An interesting item in today’s Shelf Awareness:

In the last month or so, I know of three stores hit by those perennial scam artists who call using the TDD operator or e-mail, asking for large quantities of expensive books, using a stolen credit card that initially goes through but later is charged back.

I don’t see any end in sight to this either. A friend of mine who knows about this said the police don’t even pursue this type of crime until it’s up in the tens of thousands of dollars. No wonder the scammers aren’t worried. We’re all paying for it, though, through increased card fees.

Related posts:

1. Q&A: How can I deal with customer complaints about Media Mail?
2. Q&A: Amazon refunded my customer, who claimed she never ordered the book!