A flooring company is out $30,000 after a customer used a fraudulent credit card to purchase hardwood flooring.
Summit International Canada, based in Pickering, Ontario, received a call from someone in the area identifying as a contractor and wanting to purchase the hardwood in bulk using a credit card over the phone, according to a report by Global News.
As they had never dealt with the client before, the company said it called the bank to make sure the purchaser was legitimate, and also sent a representative to the delivery site to examine the original signed credit card provided by the buyer before deciding to ship the wood.
The company’s bank, TD Bank, authorized several separate purchases from the client, totaling $30,000.
Three months later, the bank determined the credit card had been fraudulent and withdrew the $30,000 from Summit International’s account.
The flooring company hired a lawyer, who discovered that the home the wood had been shipped to was for sale and had been unoccupied at the time. The scammer had apparently broken into the home’s garage in order to receive the shipment, according to the report. The company has not been able to contact or locate him since.
The bank said in a statement to Global News that the flooring company was still responsible for the payment, as it had “clear signs immediately before and after the goods were delivered that should have led them to question their customer and take immediate steps to address the situation as they saw fit at the time.”
The bank’s merchant services agreement further states that merchants are “responsible for all fees, discounts, refusals and chargeback resulting from unsigned, un-imprinted, manually keyed or authorized transactions.”
Since falling prey to the fraud, the flooring company said it now requires all unknown customers to come to the store in person with valid photo identification in order to complete a purchase.
