SHAMOKIN - It was set to be the biggest order Nancy McElwee had ever received in her many years of business.
But the fact that Mac's Hoagies doesn't take credit cards may have saved the business from being scammed.
On Monday, McElwee took a phone call from a woman who said she was a member of a telecommunications relay service assisting a hearing-impaired person.
"We've gotten calls before from the service and have filled the orders, but they were something like five hoagies and the person picked them up themselves," McElwee said.
After asking several questions about menu items, the customer placed an order for 250 turkey and cheese sandwiches on kaiser rolls, each with a bag of chips and a soda for July 15. The woman said the order was for a celebration party.
McElwee asked her daughter, Shannon, to help her tally up the cost of the order.
"They were talking to her about what all is included with the sandwiches and I was working with the calculator, figuring out the total," Shannon said.
The bill came to $950.
While McElwee had never had such a large order - even though she has provided sandwiches for proms and even a wedding - she knew Mac's Hoagies could make the sandwiches by the requested date.
"All we were going to have to do was order more buns," McElwee said. "But as we got to talking more and more, it got a little more suspicious."
The customer said he would hire a truck to pick up the order, which would be shipped a "great distance," McElwee said.
After learning the price of the order, however, the customer reduced the order to 150 sandwiches and asked to pay with a credit card.
McElwee told the woman Mac's Hoagies does not accept credit cards.
"The relay assistant said the gentleman was insistent on giving the information, but I wasn't taking it, so she then said that the person hung up, and that was the end of the order."
Similar scam
A similar incident occurred in Nescopeck later that day. The Press-Enterprise reported that Franco's Pizzeria of Nescopeck received a order for 150 grilled chicken sandwiches through the relay service for a birthday party July 8.
The customer, a woman, asked Holly Burda, owner of the pizzeria, to charge her credit card for an extra $980 and wire that amount to a shipping company, which was sending a truck to pick up the sandwiches.
"The bubble burst," Burda told the Bloomsburg paper. "It was a scam. I knew it."
Laughing now
Despite the loss of the big order, Shannon McElwee said they are laughing about it now.
"We were a little happy about the big order, but then were relieved that they hung up and we didn't have to fill it," she said. "Once we learned it was a scam, we were very happy we didn't go through with it."
Common enough
The type of scam encountered by McElwee and Burda is common enough to be addressed by the Better Business Bureau (BBB). According to the bureau's website, any money wired to a supposed shipper will actually end up in the hands of the customer/scammer and the credit card number provided is stolen. Not only does the scammed business suffer the loss of the goods or services ordered by the scammer, it will also lose whatever money was wired to the phony delivery service.
The Better Business Bureau offers the following advice to business owners to help identify fraud:
- If the customer is using a TTY Relay Operator, ask the customer for his full name, address and telephone number.
- Ask the customer to provide the name of the issuing bank and its toll-free customer service number, which is printed on the back of all credit cards.
- Ask the customer for the three or four digit Card Verification Code (CVC) that is found near the account number on the back or front of a credit card.
- Tell the customer that you will check with the bank and call them back. When you do that, keep good notes. Verify all information the customer provides. If a customer objects, explain that these procedures are for their protection as well.
- If the customer still objects to providing any of the above information, hang up.