In many of the inquiries which we have undertaken in the past we often find that when fraud or deception is involved the buyer of the goods has been previously involved in fraudulently purchasing items online via multiple retailers, they then try to recover funds via their credit card company or PayPal to avoid payment. In many of these situations there were no grounds and the seller is dealing with a plain and simple attempt to fraudulently deprive the seller of the money to which they are lawfully entitled. In many cases we can gather sufficient information to confirm beyond doubt that the individual has done this repeatedly in the past and successfully got away with it, of course when the fraudster comes up against a situation where an online retailer retains the services of an organization such as ourselves the perpetrator is in an entirely different situation in which their illicit activity will very quickly begin to unravel.
In our experience most people have the common sense to realise that once an organization like ourselves is starting to look deeply into their their personal details and history they realise that if they have no real grounds for the claim it is a lot more sensible to seek an amicable resolution than to allow things to evolve to the stage where our client has incurred significant costs which means that the whole matter cannot be easily concluded because by one means or another the client must not only recover his initial losses due to the issue which arose with the credit card company but they must also cover our costs plus any costs applied by the credit card processing company to deal with a chargeback claim and defend against it. This normally leads to a situation where the costs very rapidly start to escalate and it then develops into a position where the matter cannot be resolved without the need for either instructing debt collectors or proceeding through the courts.
15 years ago this part of our business was a relatively small percentage of what we dealt with but with today's world of technology online shopping has become one of the most popular ways for people to purchase goods and services, unfortunately it also created unprecedented potential for fraudsters and those seeking to obtain a pecuniary advantage by deception to defraud online retailers, individuals and charities. Investigation Network specialize in inquiries which involve purchases where an individual attempts to retain goods or services obtained by using a false credit card or other payment method such as PayPal and subsequently claiming that either that they didn't receive the goods even though there is proof of delivery or that there was something wrong with the goods, if there has been no contact between them and the retailer to resolve the issue it would of course ring alarm bells. It is frequently determined that if the fraudster cannot show that they attempted to resolve the issue with the seller and the circumstances of the deception are unusual then it's usually the case that the person will be engaging in this type of behavior habitually, from that point it can be relatively easy for us to prove that they are deliberately involved in attempting to obtain goods or services by deception.
Sometimes people use cards which they are not entitled to use but with various procedures in place by the card companies such as checking ZIP Codes/Post Codes via the CVV System and notification by text messages of purchases the incidence of transactions involving Credit and debit cards which are entirely fraudulent has significantly declined.
One area which is still a problem although once again diminishing is where a buyer claims that they were not the instigator of the purchase or that it was made entirely without their knowledge. In this situation we would normally approach the individual and ask if it could be a member of the household who made the purchase, frequently they will say that it's out of the question, we then go back to our client and ask them to provide us with the IP address from which the purchase was made. At this stage we will already have sent a email to the client which is tagged with forensic tracking which will enable us to determine if their IP address is the same as the one used for the purchase, assuming this turns out to be the case it is normally quite straight forward from this point to recover the funds.
In many cases credit card transactions are deemed to be civil disputes, our area of specialty is digging deeply into the buyer and their history to find out whether there is evidence of persistent behavior of this type and turning the inquiry from a routine civil dispute into a case requiring the involvement of law enforcement. We can usually do this by accessing a number of sources such as their credit file, looking at certain historical situations, for example if we find constant changes of banks whilst checking their credit file it may suggest they have a history of filing chargeback requests with the bank credit card issuer or PayPal sometimes information will be able to be located confirming this. Once we can confirm that the person has habitually engaged in applying for unwarranted chargebacks or disputing charges we can frequently provide the file to the local law-enforcement authorities on the grounds that there is a pattern of fraudulent behavior this is especially the case if during the search we determine they have a criminal record for some form of fraudulent behavior. Often during the course of the inquiry we will come across other companies who they have dealt with the perpetrator who will of course make statements supporting the fact that the person or company is engaged in illicit activity.
Even if local law-enforcement will not pursue the case the matter can be addressed through either debt recovery or the Small Claims Court either way it would significantly increase the costs to the person who has committed the crime and once we have identified exactly who they are, and where they live and work, once we have a complete file they will frequently negotiate to prevent costs spiraling out of control. As an example it is frequently the case that once we obtain a judgement people think they can simply fail to pay, but because we will have determined where they work and who their employer is we can then apply for an attachment to earnings order meaning they have no say in the matter because the employer will deduct the funds and pay them across to the victim under an order from the court, depending on the state, country or jurisdiction it may be that the funds have to be paid to the court who will then pay them to the victim but in many cases there will be administrative charges which will increase the costs further. Courts in some locations apply a cost for administering each payment, this means there is an incentive for the perpetrator to pay off the debt as soon as possible. A recent case involving an online deception which only amounted to $500 in respect of a mobile phone purchase in California ended up costing the individual who had committed the deception $3400 once our fees, court fees and various other cost such as collection fees were factored in. The perpetrator had the option to settle at an early stage for the original amount but chose not to, the consequence of this was that when an attachment to earnings order was presented to his employer his employment was terminated on the grounds that his employer did not feel confident he could continue to work for them when they found out from him the facts of the case. Because we had an order from the court he had to notify details of his new employer, so we simply approached the new employer and presented the attachment to earnings order again, of course he also wanted to know exactly what was going on but decided not to terminate the individuals' employment.
The reality of the situation is that online fraud however it is committed is potentially very costly and dangerous. Fortunately, every type of online activity leaves a data trail such as IP addresses and when we combine our ability to investigate forensics email system which determines significant information about the fraudsters Internet connection and computer system we can start to build a case to present to the appropriate people.
Investigation Network has access to one of the world's largest databases of domain/IP profile information, we have worked with some of the world’s largest companies, governments, and law enforcement agencies to bring numerous individuals and corporations to justice who have engaged in fraud or other illicit activity on a significant scale.
We specialize in the investigation of a wide range of crimes and deceptions, in particular, the tracing of email addresses to the actual name and address of the owner of the email address, as well as the location where an email was sent from. Also if a fraud involves eBay or Amazon or vice versa we can frequently locate accounts on the other platform to determine if there has been a history of false claims or disputes all of which would give weight to any additional inquiries. We frequently find that if a person is involved in illicit activity on one occasion there will be previous incidents it is by determining the nature of these previous events that we can put together the necessary information to turn what is at first sight a civil inquiry into a criminal investigation hence putting it into the hands of the local law enforcement authorities who would then tend to investigate further.
Our inquiries will usually answer a large variety of questions, for example, what has the person done or is currently doing online which could constitute fraud or attempting to obtain a pecuniary advantage by deception? What is their social media profile? Where do they appear? Does the email address or phone number appear somewhere in relation to a previous fraud inquiry? Do they have a criminal record? If we determine they have a criminal record does it link directly to this type of behavior?
If it CAN be found, we can find it and present the information to you in a manner that strips away the mystique of dealing with Internet related cases. Many people assume wrongly that the Internet is anonymous, they get a rather unpleasant awakening when they discover it can be very far from it when approached in the correct way.
Investigation Network are also one of the leading investigators of computer related crimes, eBay, Amazon and other Internet auction fraud, plus many other Internet based frauds and scams such as online purchases with the intent to cause the seller loss, investment fraud, dating and property scams.
It has to be said that investigating auction site fraud, Internet Fraud, Internet Stalking/Harassment, Network Vulnerability Assessments, Penetration Testing, Website history etc is only a part of what we do, if the case involves the Internet in any way, we can provide the absolute highest quality and most complete investigation services to meet any need. Investigation Network has investigated well over 2000 cases of internet related crime.
The difference between Investigation Network and other enquiries agencies is that we know exactly where to look, for example one recent case involved an individual who filed three separate credit card chargeback claims not realising that two of the sales were via the same company but with different outlets and that the third was with one of their distributors, fortunately he made a mistake when he filed the claims by claiming that all three items were defective but at no time had he contacted any of the sellers. We managed to determine that one of the items purchased had been resold on his eBay account and in the case of one of the other items at the time he filed the claim he had not actually received the goods so clearly the items could not have been defective. This was a very straightforward case for us to simply contact the local police department and file an allegation of fraudulent be obtaining goods on behalf of our client. The perpetrator was arrested and unbeknown to us the police were aware he had engaged in previous activity because there had already been a complaint received regarding a similar situation a few months previously. Further enquiries led to various issues involving both eBay and Amazon. The perpetrator was brought before the court found guilty and sentenced accordingly. This is just an example but it is not dissimilar to many other cases which we deal with.
As regards the seriousness of the issue, the penalties for credit card fraud vary greatly from country to country, but just as an example in the United States whilst it can vary somewhat depending on the state, circumstances and severity of the case once the matter is in the hands of law-enforcement and the courts it can become the perpetrators worst nightmare. At the low end in the majority of states, it can lead to a year in county jail and a $1,000 fine. On the high end, it is punishable by up to three years in county jail and a $10,000 fine! Just these facts alone are frequently enough for most perpetrators to seek to resolve matters unless they have an ironclad dispute and I'm advised by the lawyers that there is no way that obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception is something for which they can be found guilty in the courts. Of course even getting that legal opinion from a local lawyer is going to significantly add to the individuals costs when it would probably be a lot simpler just to resolve matters.
Whilst we have not dealt with these types of issues in every single state we are well aware that some states such as Florida, New York and California tend to be very aggressive with pursuing this type of issue. Many European countries are also very harsh with serious penalties.
In some countries such as the United States one other factor which the perpetrators should be mindful of is that credit card fraud is also potentially a federal offense. They might be charged by a federal prosecutor if they have been accused of credit card fraud across state lines or fraud against the government. In this case, the penalty can be as high as 20 years prison time.
Although we operate in a wide variety of different locations worldwide most of them will have facilities to deal with a wide variety of illicit behaviour for example the links below in the United States tend to be quite helpful and proactive.
The site we recommend taking a looked at as a starting point is https://www.fraudguides.com this covers every state. As most enquiries which we undertake tend to be centred in Florida, California and New York we have added links to those three states.
https://www.fraudguides.com/report/report-california/
https://www.fraudguides.com/report/report-florida/
https://www.fraudguides.com/report/report-new-york/
https://www.tax.ny.gov/help/contact/fraud-scams-idtheft.htm
Our Services Include:
- Tracing the Sender of Anonymous Emails
- eBay & Internet Auction Fraud Investigations
- Online fraud inquiries involving credit card payments
- Cyber-Stalker & Email Harassment Identification
- Internet Scam & Fraud Investigations
- Internet Profiling & Online Activity Checks
- Celebrity Threat Assessment & Management
- Computer Forensics & Data Recovery
- Telephone Harassment Traces
- Determining the historical behavior of the individual involved
If you have been, or are currently the victim of email harassment, cyber-stalking, Internet fraud, auction fraud, dating scams and many of the other distressing types of internet and online auction related crime which are so prevalent contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your case.