Amazon.com

[Airic]

We all have read or have experiences the problems that have been associated with amazon, ebay, paypal and the likes. Heres my story:

I woke up today to find $761.00 missing from my bank account. I checked the statement and there was a charge for that amount from amazon.com. I went to our amazon account and there was an order there for 2 new nokia cell phones ($369.00 a piece) on my account that was shipping next day ups to my house. Of course I flipped out, i called amazon and ups and after a little work I found out that the shipment that was supposed to be sent to my doorstep was now actually going to California, to a person and address that I do not know. Someone at amazon requested a delivery intercept:

"THE SHIPPER HAS REQUESTED A DELIVERY INTERCEPT FOR THIS PACKAGE / DELIVERY TO AN ALTERNATE ADDRESS WAS REQUESTED"

Thats straight off the tracking page. I'm getting scammed by someone at amazon, who has access to all my information. After hours of more work...im just now getting the amazon to contact ups and get a return to sender put on the package so that I can get my money back. They just told me that the package is now going to be shipped back to amazon and when it gets back to amazon they will start to process my refund. I caught it just in time, ups said it was supposed to be loaded on the truck to go to california tonight because its an overnight package.

Meanwhile, my bank account is pretty much cleaned out because I just finished paying bills and that money was what was left over.....

I'm done with using any of these sites anymore.

While I was on the phone with the lady at amazon, my 1yr old girl squealed a little. The lady goes: "aww, is that a baby I hear"

I said: "ya, and that baby isn't going to have any milk or diapers if you don't get this problem fixed today."

[Catfish]

[Kingman]

The schemes that occur today suck

[03k64]

That's why I have one credit card that I use for online purchases and that card allows me to generate a single use number for each purchase. It's a bit more work when shopping but it's worth the security.

[shooting for M]

I know it'll probably be a pain but fill out a police report. Hammer these scammers.

Jason

[Airic]

I know it'll probably be a pain but fill out a police report. Hammer these scammers.

Jason

Well....I am a cop, and I work these cases every week. A rookie on our shift actually worked one for $3k last night. I think the investigations I have done before helped me work all this out and catch the crime in progress. I'm not going to fill out a police report....I've got a friend at the attorney generals office that works cyber crimes....gonna call him monday. I have the name and address of the person that it was supposed to be shipped to in cali, I think we have a good chance of catching this person with all the information i gathered today and the fraud investigations I started w/ amazon and ups.

I will hammer this person. No one puts my family in jeopardy without consequences.

[BritinUSA]

If UPS, FedEx and the others would just prevent people from changing the delivery address after shipping then a lot of these problems would be prevented. I mean who really needs to change the shipping address ? If you want an item delivered to a specific place why would you change your mind ?

Every time someone alters the shipping address, it should wave a red flag to these people that a crime is very likely in progress. I am willing to bet that 99.99% of altered shipping addresses are due to fraud.

[raz-0]

I've had to have the delivery address changed for legit reasons. Usually because some online vendors shipping software has mangled the address autmagically to something that will just result in a "returned undeliverable status."

One time it also had to be done becuase the shipper totally screwed up and used a pre-printed shipping label for a previous order that was supposed to be discarded due to typos in in the shipping information.

Unfortunately, it is one of those hard problems. LEgitimate customers need the function there. Even if you make it so only the shipper can change it, then something like waht happened to airic can still happen. You just move gaming the system form the UPS CS rep to the web-store's CS rep. If you made it so you couldn't alter the delivery at all, then in the case Airic describes, amazon would not have been able to recall the package.

As for Airic, I feel your pain. It sucks, but at least you were paying attention to your accounts. Which is about the only real defense these days.

[folsoml]

If UPS, FedEx and the others would just prevent people from changing the delivery address after shipping then a lot of these problems would be prevented. I mean who really needs to change the shipping address ? If you want an item delivered to a specific place why would you change your mind ?

Every time someone alters the shipping address, it should wave a red flag to these people that a crime is very likely in progress. I am willing to bet that 99.99% of altered shipping addresses are due to fraud.

Good luck getting them to change. UPS even brags on their commercials about how you can reroute your packages after you've sent them.

[ChrisStock]

Man oh man... that BLOWS. Being the hardheaded man living in the wrong time type of guy I am, I would be sorely tempted to pay a visit to the shipping address. I know it's not legal, but I think it would be right. Bastards.

[Rob Boudrie]

I have the name and address of the person that it was supposed to be shipped to in cali, I think we have a good chance of catching this person with all the information i gathered today and the fraud investigations I started w/ amazon and ups.

I will hammer this person. No one puts my family in jeopardy without consequences.

Good luck. All you have to do is either get the feds to take the case (unliklely for this amount), or to get the appropriate inter-agency cooperation. Once you get past that point, the government is going to need to prove that the recipient was the fraudster, and not simply the address from which a criminal would steal the package when it was dropped off. In the end, the most probably outcome is that your tough talk will not result in any convictions - but I wish you well in your effort to be the exception.

This kind of situation is why I refuse to accept "debit cards" or ATM cards that also are usable as a debit card. Even if the charge is accepted as fradulent, there is the possibility of numerous bounced checks; extra hassle; Chex Systems blacklisting; and dealing with third party bad check charges.