[alreadyused]

 if it's a first-time order from a brand new customer and it's, say, for a Ragnarok and Yggdrasil (when available) and it's shipped next day

Jason, 
 
When available...next day? Are you hinting that Yggy is going to be released tomorrow?

 

[tinkertailor]

really interesting read, thanks.

 

[m8o]

Well for the record, there are very respectable people with swanky suburban houses in desirable zip codes that also own apartments in the city. I am one of them.

The house is the primary residence and CC billing address. But if work/life schedules make it so I need to stay in my apartment for 2 or 3 weeks in a row, that's where I'm shipping an order (plus, I have a security desk or concierge to always safely accept the order). Haven't had anyone 'red flag' that and deny me a purchase in the dozen years I've kept two homes; hundreds of goods ordered.

But here, it sounds like someone's preconceived notions are liable to consider me a scammer because I had some success in my life, split my time between homes, and ship to my alt. home and have a door man to accept it.

 

[jopagi]

Thanks Jason once again for an entertaining and informative chapter.  
 
This one in particular is near and dear to my heart (and wallet) since I work for a payment and fraud solutions company. 
There are many types of fraudsters, ranging from someone who simply stole a wallet to professionals who have access to thousands of matching credit cards and addresses.     It's a fascinating battle to design and tune fraud detection models.
 
The general goal is not to prevent fraud -- that's simply too big a task -- but to make the fraudsters look for an easier target somewhere else.

 

[jimmers]

Well for the record, ...

Thanks for sharing

 

[Dinerenblanc]

Well for the record, there are very respectable people with swanky suburban houses in desirable zip codes that also own apartments in the city. I am one of them.

The house is the primary residence and CC billing address. But if work/life schedules make it so I need to stay in my apartment for 2 or 3 weeks in a row, that's where I'm shipping an order (plus, I have a security desk or concierge to always safely accept the order). Haven't had anyone 'red flag' that and deny me a purchase in the dozen years I've kept two homes; hundreds of goods ordered.

But here, it sounds like someone's preconceived notions are liable to consider me a scammer because I had some success in my life, split my time between homes, and ship to my alt. home and have a door man to accept it.

Thanks for the laugh.

 

[UmustBKidn]

This story makes me glad I get a steady paycheck.
 
When eBay was new, I joined and bought a few things, and sold a few things. On one purchase, the item I bought wasn't anything like what was described (it was a computer motherboard), and it was damaged so bad as to be totally useless. When I complained to the seller, his response was "I never said they were working!" The original ad never said anything about damaged items being sold, so I complained to eBay. Eventually after some more emails the guy sent me a refund. After that, I stopped using eBay for many years.
 
More than a decade later, I logged back in (same account was still there), and discovered they'd implemented a drastically improved purchase guarantee. So I tried buying a few things again. There do still seem to be people out there who take advantage of others, because we're not dealing with each other in person - and people think their computer screen isolates them from reality. But the few problems I did have were resolved very easily, much better than it was in the 90's.
 
I really feel sorry for Schiit on this subject. They're on the receiving end of the Internet's liars, thieves, and cheats. I remain amazed how many people there are in this world, who are eager to screw someone over, just because they're behind a computer screen.
 
It seems that virtual reality turns some people into monsters. Or perhaps it just brings out the monsters they hide when they're in public view.

 

[gikigill]

Well for the record, there are very respectable people with swanky suburban houses in desirable zip codes that also own apartments in the city. I am one of them.

The house is the primary residence and CC billing address. But if work/life schedules make it so I need to stay in my apartment for 2 or 3 weeks in a row, that's where I'm shipping an order (plus, I have a security desk or concierge to always safely accept the order). Haven't had anyone 'red flag' that and deny me a purchase in the dozen years I've kept two homes; hundreds of goods ordered.

But here, it sounds like someone's preconceived notions are liable to consider me a scammer because I had some success in my life, split my time between homes, and ship to my alt. home and have a door man to accept it.

You can get a second address registered under your banking profile.
Pretty much every bank has a primary and secondary address option as a lot of people use postboxes for their mail.

 

[Currawong]

I used to work in the shipping part of a large company in Sydney, before they bought out their highly sophisticated competitor which was far better organised. We used to get quite a bit of CC fraud, but as the call centre was in Melbourne all we had was a printer that spat out orders, which I'd give to workers to pick. After a number of notices came through asking for signatures for items never received, all single orders for computers, delivered to schools or businesses that were shut at the time, with the person receiving them standing out the front, the scam being run became pretty obvious.
 
If you know anything about Sydney, the Eastern suburbs down towards the shore and beaches are were all the rich people live. Out in the Western Suburbs there is Australia's largest shopping centre in Paramatta, beyond which are suburbs with such lovely names as "Old Toongabbie", "Doonside", "Woodcroft", "Seven Hills" and "Rooty Hill" that are, well, legendary for the crazy things that happen there. After a bit of analysis of the regular frauds going on, I could say with confidence that an order of a single notebook computer to be delivered to any of those suburbs west of Paramatta was 100% fraudulent, and I'd simply fax (yes, the glories of the company spending epic amounts moving to SAP was that we had no communications system other than a phone and a fax to communicate with the call centre) the order back with "FRAUD" or "AS IF!" or something else written on it. Once in a while we'd work with the police to do a sting, processing the order and then having the police, dressed in our uniform, deliver it. Most of the fraud seemed to come from people who's CC details were ripped off at restaurants or other businesses when they handed over their card to pay the bill.
 
The biggest rip-off we had was of a dozen or so computers which simply vanished over a period of time. Nobody, least of all the management, had any idea where they had gone. Everyone in the whole building (a store and a delivery centre) was under suspicion. People were rotated around, cameras installed, yet stock still vanished. In the end, the police turned up and hauled away the receiving co-ordinator one morning, much to the shock of workers present. A lovely man and hard worker, he had, when computers arrived in a shipment and the coast was clear, simply called up a courier and shipped them to his house, where his brother awaited. Because nothing was logged in any way at our site, and courier bills didn't show individual addresses, it took a lot of process of elimination work to figure out what had happened. The courier drivers didn't give a toss either -- many of them were dodgy in one way or another and at least one tried to rip us off under our noses.

 

[Billheiser]

Well for the record, there are very respectable people with swanky suburban houses in desirable zip codes that also own apartments in the city. I am one of them.

The house is the primary residence and CC billing address. But if work/life schedules make it so I need to stay in my apartment for 2 or 3 weeks in a row, that's where I'm shipping an order (plus, I have a security desk or concierge to always safely accept the order). Haven't had anyone 'red flag' that and deny me a purchase in the dozen years I've kept two homes; hundreds of goods ordered.

But here, it sounds like someone's preconceived notions are liable to consider me a scammer because I had some success in my life, split my time between homes, and ship to my alt. home and have a door man to accept it.

Dude, don't take it personally.

 

[superjawes]

Well for the record, there are very respectable people with swanky suburban houses in desirable zip codes that also own apartments in the city. I am one of them.


The house is the primary residence and CC billing address. But if work/life schedules make it so I need to stay in my apartment for 2 or 3 weeks in a row, that's where I'm shipping an order (plus, I have a security desk or concierge to always safely accept the order). Haven't had anyone 'red flag' that and deny me a purchase in the dozen years I've kept two homes; hundreds of goods ordered.


But here, it sounds like someone's preconceived notions are liable to consider me a scammer because I had some success in my life, split my time between homes, and ship to my alt. home and have a door man to accept it.

Dude, don't take it personally.

Yeah, Jason's comments about mismatches between billing/shipping addresses is just a rule of thumb to identify potential scams. You wouldn't be offended if someone else locked their doors to prevent theft...one would hope.

 

[Tuco1965]

Think of it like going through airport security.  Just because you have to submit to checks doesn't make you a threat or mean you're a terrorist.  It's just the way things are.  Everyone goes through the same process. Rich or poor.  No big deal.

 

[mordante]

What would happen if I were to buy a 2nd hand Gungnir and by chance it breaks down. I send it away to have it repaired and it turns out to be one of the items you Schiit lost during a scam? Would you still repair it? Would you keep it?

 

[muziq]

Well for the record,

 
Thanks for slumming it with us. 

 

[OneTallGuy]

All this talk about non matching shipping addresses and credit card addresses can easily be remedied.  
 
I have credit cards with billing address of my home and billing address of my office.  Wherever I want the item shipped, I use the credit card with that address.
 
Always works.