I received a phone call at work today, it was the operator. She wanted to know if I would accept a relay call. Since I had no idea what it was, she explained it to me. The person on the other line is either hearing or speech impaired, so they would type verbage into a computer, and she would read it to me, and reverse. Okay, sure, I accept it. This guy wants to know if we have blue 8x8 tile available. I explain that I have to order it, it's not something we stock. I find two different companies that have what he's looking for, then he tells me he needs 100 pieces. We don't sell it by the piece, it's by the square foot, blah blah blah. While I'm having this conversation, he wants to know if we can email him the total amount for the bill.
Sure, not a problem, give me his addy. So I send of an email, while I'm still having a conversation. 31 minutes later, he says goodbye, and doesn't tell me to order the tile. Needless to say, I was a bit frustrated. I had to tell him several time about ordering by the square foot, and that I didn't stock it, I had to order it. Oh, and in one of the emails, he wants me to get on Messenger, so he can talk to me. Um, NO!
I then receive an email, asking the price again. So I go over all that again. Over a series of 8 emails, I get the go ahead to order, and he gives me his credit card to pay for it. Now our machine will sometimes ask for the zip code if you don't have the card present. The addy he gave me was for New Jersey. That sent up a little red flag, but then I thought maybe he just moved here, and hasn't changed anything yet. Then he proceeds to tell me that this stuff is going to Ghana for a client of his. And that I'm supposed to fax our address, quantity, and shipping weight to this company and get a freight quote to send it from here to there.
Now I'm thinking, wow, this is a bit bizarre. He wants the whole transaction to go through the store.
I'm still thinking this is weird, but he said he used this company for other shipping, so it must be legit. After I sent the fax, it was time for me to go, and I left him a message as such.
Jill called me just before I was to leave for work, and she got the quote from this shipping company.
$2400.00!!
To ship 5 boxes of tile to Ghana!
And they wanted us to Western Union them the money before they would process the paperwork to set up a pick up.
OH HELL NO!
Can you say, SCAM?!
Jill emailed me tonight, oh hell, here's the email.
I think our approach with this guy should be that you took the fax from SCAMMING SHIPPING COMPANY to your boss and were told that paying for shipping in this way is against company policy and will not be done this way. If he would like to send us the wire transfer first, or check, money order or credit card we would be happy to procede once the money is in our account. We just do not do business this way. It will be very interesting to see how he replies. Are you up for it? If I didn't have your bad ass attitude to deal with this guy* I would simply tell him that I've credited his credit card for the $166, cancel his order and wash my hands of him! It would also be interesting to see what he says about getting a freight quote from FedEx. I bet FedEx doesn't even go to Ghana!

*Sidenote: I love Jill dearly, but she's a big pushover, hence the comment! She knows I don't take crap from anyone. Mostly anyone that is!;-)

I emailed her back and I told her that I was really annoyed after thinking about it all afternoon, and I email him and told him we were NOT going to take care of his shipping. If he wanted to use this company to ship with, he will have to make the arrangements. I also called Mike and had him call the distributors and put the order on hold until we heard from him. That was at 3:30 this afternoon, and I have not gotten any kind of response.
I'm going to call the phone company tomorrow and see if I can find out where the call originated from. I also was out on the web tonight, googling the name of the shipping company, and the church it supposedly is going to, and found nothing on either on.
I'm also going to do some investigating into internet scams, and see if this one known yet, and if not, I'm going to let people know.
Now, you might want to play devil's advocate, and say that this guy is legit, and his request might be genuine. But then why, in his last email to me, he said that he was "online waiting for reply." And he hasn't replied? I guess we'll just wait and see what happens tomorrow.
I thought I was suppose to have the boys this morning, but apparently I wasn't. I couldn't remember if I told her last week that I would take them today. Since the hadn't shown up 6:30 I went back to bed for another hour.
Plus, I had to go in early to the shithole for a training session. We changed from 0ffice Depot to St@ples as our supplier, and I had to sit and watch some guy show us how to navigate the website.
Yeah, I'm pretty smart, I could have figured it out myself, thanks. So with everything that happened with the tile shop, and going into the shithole early, no time for an afternoon siesta. So what I'm trying to say is, that I'm tired as hell. Jill has me scheduled everyday but Friday this week, and I think for the next two weeks, I'm pretty much every day. She told me to let her know if it's to much, and she would reduce it. Hell no, I take as many hours as you want to give me. I've got tattoos that need to be done!!
Night peeps!