Thread: Is this Fraud?

Okay, so here is what happened to me: Lately I have spent a lot of money on my PC, modding it with certain things. I had bought an Antec case with 6 blue LED fans, a window, and a modded PSU etc... a bunch of goodies. So I was thinking that I wanted to add sleeving to my PSU, fan cables, and cold cathode cables cause lets face it 6 fans and 3 cold cathodes is a BIG mess. So I looked up a bunch of modding sites and the one that kept coming up was crazypc.com. So I ordered about $173 CDN worth of goods, everything seemed fine... but in the morning I got an email that said EXACTLY the following:

CrazyPC.com
Thanks for your order. As your credit card is a non-US issued credit card, we are unable to verify the information you provided. Your order is currently on-hold until we can verify your payment information.

If you can kindly email or fax us a copy of the following:

(1) front and back of your credit card AND

(2) copy of a government-issued photo ID (i.e. drivers license or passport) AND

(3) a statement from you indicating that you authorize this order and that you are having it shipped to the person/address you are requesting.

Once we receive this information we will be able to verify and process your order.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding that this is in your best interest as a cardholder and ours as a merchant.

At first I didn't think this was bad at all, so I asked my mom to fax or email them her government ID and both sides of her card (I ordered with her card since I just turned 18 - so I don't have one yet). I tried to phone CrazyPC while they were supposed to be open, but I got some voicemail address. Then my mom tried and FINALLY got a hold of some guy. He told her that he would "Think about shipping the product over night, then come up with an answer in the morning" - this is not a professional answer, I know how credit cards are processed, business's are not allowed to ask for ID. So I told my mom to cancel the order - 5 minutes after she had talked to this guy we got his voicemail again, so we said in the voicemail "We want it cancelled, if you do not cancel it we will contact Visa.". We immediately called Visa after leaving him the message. Visa said that he had billed $173 to the account, minutes after talking to us. We told Visa what happened and they said that we should not accept any package from this CrazyPC place and that they would credit our account once we get the Credit Card bill in 17 days. Here is where I am REALLY ........ed off:

1: This guy said he might ship it hte next day.
2: You are not allowed to bill a card until shipment has commenced.
3: He never gave us shipping confirmation, so right now all I know is that we were charged and nothing is on it's way here. Not that i'll sign for it any more.
4: I emailed him and told him to cancel the order cause Visa will not give him money. He did not respond yet (it's been 34 hours now).

My mom phoned the police fraud unit and they said that you are never to send government ID to anyone, especially not both sides of your credit card with a written statement(she never sent him any of that, don't worry). They said that CC's are verified by checking the billing address on the card. The police also called us back and requested the email CrazyPC sent us. I'm not sure if they are going to investigate or what they will do.. cause I'm pretty sure that the RCMP deals with fraud here in Canada.

One of the strangest things is that Crazypc.com has an excellent rating at resellerratings.com, so I figured "Hey, they must be okay to deal with.". I cannot believe this happened. I know for a fact that giving them ID wont help 'verify and process' a credit card. Visa is HUGE and I order tonnes of stuff online (each time from the U.S.) and have never dealt with this kind problem. From now on I deal with Canadian companies only.

^ same here... and what is resellerratings.com? you should check their credibility first...

Originally posted by Perspective
>> business's are not allowed to ask for ID

thats not really true. business's can ask to see ID if you are using a credit card, however, asking for a scanned copy (which would include the sig) is crazy. id never send that.

Yea, I meant online business's. They sure as hell can't tell you that your credit card is not 'verifyable' because it's non-US... that's total BS. But yea, other business's can ask you for ID in person because they don't normally ask you for a billing address since you are normally getting product right there, such as food at restaurants, etc..

Originally posted by Thantos
Just a tip for ya all. On credit/atm cards instead of signing the back, write "See ID." It is perfectly valid to do so and saves the trouble of someone having both your card and signature at the same time.

I do that for all my cards...but so what...not like store clerks ask you for the ID. Almost all just swipe the card and give it right back to you without even checkin the freakin signature side...whats even worse is that when the swipping machine actually makes them flip the card, and they see my permanent marker PLEASE ASK FOR ID!!!, they still don't do shiznit. Not like they care if someone stole my credit card - not when making littlebit over minnimum wage.

thats life for ya,

my gosh man you have 6 case fans?

send a couple over here, will you?

all i got is 1 case fan, 1 cpu fan, and 1 ps fan

Originally posted by axon
I do that for all my cards...but so what...not like store clerks ask you for the ID. Almost all just swipe the card and give it right back to you without even checkin the freakin signature side...

Yeah, I get asked for ID maybe 20% of the time with the "See ID" on the card.

Originally posted by Thantos
I make it a point to talk to the managers at places where that happens.

well then you have a lot of time on your hands...I use my debit way too often, and if I wanted to talk to a manager everytime someone didn't ask for id I would have to spend twice as much time in the store. No thanks.

Originally posted by DavidP
my gosh man you have 6 case fans?

send a couple over here, will you?

all i got is 1 case fan, 1 cpu fan, and 1 ps fan

Yea. I have 2 fans in the front, 2 in the back, 1 side, 1 top, 2 in the power supply, plus CPU fan. So I suppose in total I have 9 fans. The power supply has 1 potentiometer to control the PSU fans, and I was forced to buy a Vantec Nexus 3 fan controller w/ cold cathode controller cause the left potentiometer on the front of my case started doing funky things with the fans. I think I might be spending a little too much money on modding my case... Hmm.. nah. I think I'll make a custom mod soon by putting a mirror in the top of my case with a hole for the fan, that'll be awesome. Anyways, back to the topic. I have walked into stores with other peoples debit cards (with their permission) and purchased over $1000 worth of computer parts. Actually, there was this time when I wanted to buy $1600 worth of PC parts(PC for my brother) at a local vendor with debit cards - so I had two of my moms cards and one of mine. So I asked him to charge $1000 to my moms first card, then they agreed and it went through... then I accidentally pulled out my card (same bank as my moms other card) and tried charging the rest to it, which was unsuccessful, so I looked at the guy and said "Oh, wait, that one is my card. Here is the card we're looking for" and then my friend was with me and I was like "Okay, so this PIN is... oh yes.. I remember!". So here I am, a teenager with 3 debit cards, sifting through them, guessing pins, buying $1600 worth of computer parts and they didn't even check the signature. lol!

As your credit card is a non-US issued credit card, we are unable to verify the information you provided. Your order is currently on-hold until we can verify your payment information.

I have never been given that kind of answer on my credit card. And it's no US-issued card. Not by 5000 miles.

After looking at the site I would have to say they are just stupid. The Terms of Sale page looks legit (Although it could have been stolen from any legit site and altered a little). Many owned sale sites are not very professional due to the fact that most of their bussiness goes over through the web. It does say you get a return fee so you can get your money back easy. That review site you talked about. How do they do ratings? It is a owner of the site checks it out and all OR is it merely a word of the mouth thing? You should look into stuff like that.

Originally posted by ZakkWylde969
After looking at the site I would have to say they are just stupid. The Terms of Sale page looks legit (Although it could have been stolen from any legit site and altered a little). Many owned sale sites are not very professional due to the fact that most of their bussiness goes over through the web. It does say you get a return fee so you can get your money back easy. That review site you talked about. How do they do ratings? It is a owner of the site checks it out and all OR is it merely a word of the mouth thing? You should look into stuff like that.

Well, the site works like this:
Any business can be added to the resellerratings.com, and then the customers can leave their own reviews(with ratings to shipping time, QOS, etc.) - which the owners of the business may reply to. I thought that the reviews of 20 people or so would reflect the business entirely, but I was wrong. From now on I guess I'll have to be the judge of whether a business is good or not.