The Mercury Mindset

Warn your merchants about this hearing impaired service scam.

A popular telephone scam uses hearing impaired services to place fraudulent orders of goods and services. It’s usually combined with an overpayment scam and results in a chargeback. Scammers use a hearing impaired service to pull at the heart strings of merchants and to hide their location and identity, since the service does not reveal the location of the caller.

How it works:

Restaurants and caterers are popular targets for this scam. The caller places a large order over the phone via the hearing impaired service. The caller is often out of the state or country and is unable to pick up the order. They ask the merchant to process an additional amount on the credit card to pay for a courier or delivery service. They then ask the merchant to wire transfer them the additional amount. Once the money is wired it often cannot be stopped. Remind your merchants to never wire funds.

In a retail scenario, the caller typically wants merchandise shipped via the fastest shipping method available. Because it’s a fraudulent transaction, merchants lose money on the product shipped out, and the transaction later results in a chargeback.

Many businesses have been taken by this scam. Here are some red flags for merchants to watch for.

• The caller requests overnight shipping or the fastest method available
• The caller places an unusually large order and never questions the price
• The caller tries using various credit card numbers when one is declined
• The caller does not give valid phone numbers for contact information
• The caller requests a wire transfer

Urge merchants to verify the validity of an order placed over the phone, email or hearing impaired service by obtaining the following information: full name as it appears on the card, billing address, ship to address, and call back number. Then, they should hang up, and attempt to call the person back before processing the transaction. If anything seems amiss, Mercury can help verify the cardholder’s identity.

Please refer to Visa and MasterCard for further chargeback information.