Tried to scam the shop into taking a pinarello dogma on a test ride without CC and ID... Track sprinter Kelyn Akuna said, no problem, I'll come ride with you on my bike. Testrider tried to ride towards a cubevan with an open door and accomplice waiting. Those chumps tried the wrong dude, Kelyn has PIPES, throws hands and the thieves flee. Legendary.
I can tell you one thing to spot if it's legit or not the image of the chip on the CC is wrong. I've also never seen any digital image of a credit card showing the chip. I fucking hate people like this.
It’s been a problem for years. When I was in the industry back in the 90’s we basically stopped all test rides unless it was a child or a known customer. Sorry it happened to you.
you should have spotted the fake American express font first of all on the card as that was ridiculous and should have known it was a scam in progress and you still let it go through. Better study your card brands as this was amateur hour and most bike shops i know wouldn't have done that transaction with a client with that many red flags.
I work in a bike shop in Australia and we had a similar thing happen to us. Now, if someone wants to pay over the phone we only take a 10% deposit over the phone so that they can reserve the bike. They then either pay the rest when they pick the bike up or do a direct transfer into our account. This means they can still reserve the bike over the phone and we can get it ready but at least if they dispute the charge to get the money back we are only losing 10%. Telling them they’ll have to pay the rest in store is also usually enough to scare off the scammers. Sorry to hear this happened to you
yea that was the whole thing, he had a story about he was at work and needed it for his sons bday and it wasnt the most expensive bike it was 1300 and said he would have to pay and have his wife come in a pick up in store, its all on us because we havnt been burned in a while but yea should have been avoided
absolute love this comment and this is all I try to be, in this world we al make mistakes and I want to make it known that we can all have second chances, he handled the situation with respect and felt bad about the whole thing and now he will always remember this, so he has good character and we want to be there for him
ALWAYS follow your gut feelings it doesn't matter if the other person's feelings get "hurt" when you're talking about money you shouldn't trust even your friends ,I'm so good at following my gut feeling that my boyfriend is scared of how accurate it is ,at first he used to get mad at me because I was so negative about things he wanted to buy online, after saving him a lot of money he finally confessed to me that he would pay more attention to me when it comes to figuring out scams and bad people I know it sucks when you get it wrong but people need to understand that being wary is necessary to go trough life without losing your hard earned money
Sadly, this sort of thing has been happening for well over 20+ years, but it's still a heartbreaker. As a shop owner myself, it's heart breaking...I hope that you are able to shut this down and share it with all of your other shops. Good luck!!
We had a similarly stolen bike in 2022 from our shop. Phoned-in CC etc. for an e-bike for a Christmas present. Was a sad story etc. We told the guy on the phone we'd need to see a DL when the bike was picked up. When he arrived to get the bike, we checked out the DL, which turned out to be a total fake of course (It was a really good fake!). NOW, what we did was to take a picture of the guy holding the DL up to his face without giving him a chance to say no, and he obliged. We naively assumed nobody would be stupid enough to proceed after that. Two months later, we got the chargeback, called the police and shared the details. The police had this guy's face in their database and put out a warrant for his arrest. It seems we were just one of at least four shops to get scammed by this guy, but none of the others thought to take his picture. It took about a year to catch the guy. It's before the court and we are still waiting for the next steps at this time. We'd like to at least get the money we lost on this reimbursed, but these things take a lot of time and we aren't holding our collective breath. We are in Canada, and our legal system is agonizingly slow. We've stepped up our processing procedures. Nobody can take anything out of the shop without our CC processing unit running the card, and will only take partial deposits on the phone, and prefer payments on our webstore. You learn by making mistakes.
yea exactly this was the kind of story we got, something for the kid and something quick for birthday, and the signs and flags were there we just also gave him the beneift of the doubt because we hadn't had anything fraud in a while
@@GCPerformance18 As retailers, We're programmed to be kind, and want to help, and want to take everyone at face value. Then someone takes advantage of that!
I worked in retail years ago. Had multiple goose down jackets stolen. Each one had 4 tracking alert tags that should go off at either door. We figured after there was a couple with a pram with hood down. Must have been lined with alfoil multiple sheets or similar to block the signal. No one ever saw the baby or inside the pram.
To be perfectly honest it's a lot of trouble for a bike and a pile of stuff they'll resell for 1k at best and split among them, it's hard being a criminal, idk working would be more profitable...
This is so common in all segments of retail. Perhaps it is time to go with a 10% discount for cash program along with requiring all card purchases to be swiped or read by the chip reader. Gotta protect ourselves and sometimes that causes a little grief however, that is called cheap insurance. You certainly have a good mindset, moving forward. Best wishes for you and your shop.
oooh this makes sense. I bought a bike today ordered from Italy and their payment system wouldn't accept my Amex (despite their site mentioning that it's accepted) I offered to call an give my card details over the phone but he didn't sound too keen. Makes sense now that he was being cautious. He later sent me a paypal link which I used to pay.
Yeah, bike shops get suspicious when you say you want to pay over the phone. Don't pay for things over the phone, its a great way to get scammed on a personal level too.
@ yeah I was more worried for myself but from what I could tell the stores reputable and been around since the 60’s Also I needed this to go through my Amex for the rewards ending this week so was willing to take the risk 😅
I still do not undertand if you have all data from credit card you did not use it in terminal and charge for bike. If card/data is fake, terminal should reject card. In EU shops/apps immediatelly charge for sale so without it you wilo not get confirmation and thing what you what to buy
Thanks for sharing Grant, you’re a good guy and genuine, sad that there’s dishonest people out there that lie and steal. Keep being you buddy, cause positivity and being nice always pays off in the end. I really hope that karma pays them a visit, I always say,"you must pay" and in the end they will pay for it, just likely won’t be monetarily.
That is standard procedure! Who the hell picks up a bike with no matching ID and card of purchase. Anyone could have just walked in and said they’re here to pick up a bike and you might have given away someone else’s bike by mistake. Total rookie move. Real sorry that this happened but this was 100% on you.
yea that was it, he had a story saying it was sons birthday he was at work all day he couldnt pick it up and his wife would, I knew it sounded fishy from the get go but then he sent us a pciture of a real photo id and then the credit card info that matched the name on the card, it was identity fraud for sure
when Giant launched their direct to consumer platform during Covid we were vary weary about handing off bikes to people we didn't transact with directly. Sure enough, one of the sketchiest people came to pick up a high end road bike, which did not match up with who I expected based on the backroads country address that was attached to the purchase summary. Sure enough they didn't produce anything to validate the purchase and months later Giant told us they got in touch with the info on file and "what bike" was their answer. Also, our manager literally ran a sting (with police) operation on a FB marketplace purchase one time shortly after someone managed to just walk away with a bike. Sadly the person who was selling the bike had purchased it off of someone who refused to take anything other than cash and had some weird reasons why e-transfer wasn't possible.
We've had several very similar attempts (one successful) not on bikes though (Garmin watches) No legit customer is going to walk because you perform all the proper procedures.
NEVER trust friends and family when it comes to money. Only give, never loan them money. If you can’t afford to give them the money, then you can’t afford to loan and lose it, which WILL happen. If you don’t know them, money is out of the question, you’re not a charity and they need to go to one. When it comes to charities always gives if you can . Someday you or someone you care about may need them!
Joke: This calls for a watch of the 1948 Italian neorealist drama film . . . "The Bicycle Thief" Serious: recently RU-vidr Federico Ciampella came home to find someone had broke into his shed, cut the chain[HUGE] and stole his two rim brake bikes: Canyon Ultimate and Velobuild VB-R-068.
That really sucks. I would have a hard time trusting people after that experience. It feels like it would be a scar that would take a long time to heal.
yea it sucks and this is the shitty part about retail you sometimes need ot give them the beneift of the doubt to make the sale, luckily we were a little more relaxed because it was a c heaper bike and not an sworks
It sounds like, with so many red flags and alarm bells ringing for you, to still let the bike go, you were taking one hell of a risk. $1600 on a bike without seeing a physical card or real id- your insurance is holding you liable for a reason.
Very disappointing to see and hear this. If people are determined to defraud you they will succeed. Thankfully, the majority of people are honest and that’s our only protection. Sadly, the police have enough on their plate that they’re not going to track this crime down and if the crim was to get caught chances are it’d take forever before he ends up in court and even then he’d only get a tap on the wrist. It’s a sad indictment on our politicians charged with looking after out interests.
yea I think also by the time the charge back happens we will not have anything to go after and like you said it is very hard to track it down for them, unless we do it our selves
Holy shit I've been watching your videos and didn't realize you guys were one of the first shops I ever brought my Levo back in 2019. My buddy Eddy bought a Levo from you too. Is your name Grant? I can't belive this is you guys all this time. 😅
The credit card image also had an X on the top right like some kind of stock image. Crazy story but interesting to hear about some kind of fraud I would have never imagined
As much as that sucked, as you said it’s a teachable moment and hopefully your employee’s developed spidey senses will save you many s-works in the future! That e-bike better be used to get a job and go legit for that scammer dude. How about this idea, include an airtag inside a bike purchase that seems sketchy and when payment goes through call customer and offer free tune up when they return your “accidentally misplaced” airtag and if it doesn’t, you know where the bike is ;)
Our store has done 2 things that would've prevented this: first one, you did on the second round. NEVER type in a card. EVER. And not over the phone either. Second, we don't take AmEx.
yup we never do this, This was on the new employee and I think he got the trust feeling form the guy and no one was there to advise him ebcause maybe he sees us doing it so I cant really hold him accountable for this, but now we learn
Please help me understand - I'm from Europe. Did you let the bike leave your shop without actually getting paid for it? I understand credit card disputes happen, but in this case, the card wasn't even charged? And what difference does it make if you swipe/insert/touch vs you enter the numbers manually? Is this a US thing? Is this an Amex thing?
Man.. my store gets a lot of credit card fraud attempts to purchase high-end bikes. Popular one is to use a stolen card to purchase online then rent a uhaul truck to pick it up with fake ID smh
We were getting the same thing. Now we require that the person who buys the bike on the website picks it up with their ID and credit card. Some people get annoyed but it’s better than getting the bike stolen
Online fraud is up massively since 2021 - this would be an interesting video to take into the stats by the way I would recommend buying bikes from a shop and not from previous buyers if remote... And if you do buy a bike from a previous remote buyers, make sure you at least get them on a zoom call so you can see if the bike is real.
@GCPerformance18 nice one, there's some great stats floating around on how fraud is up. Here in Canada (unless you live in Quebec) the government is so far behind the curve that you can not even freeze your credit report if they steal your details as part of a bike fraud. PayPal is also hopeless if things go wrong. Buyers don't believe for a second that you are protected by them. In my experience they are useless when you have a fast moving fraudster at work even under goods and services.
I work for a shop and we don't take anything over $100 the phone. $100 can reserve a bike or something else but the physical card needs to come out with ID. Sucks that you guys got scammed.
The shop i used to work at wouldn't enter any CC numbers manually, thats super dodgy. And you guys in the US need to move into the 21st century and use interac e-transfer for cash transfers.
we have done this before, its kind of one of those things we cant follow up until the charge back happens, and then in this matter that person and car are usually long gone
I sincerely am sorry this happened to your shop but I must say, there was a ton of yellow and red flags. Were you willing to overlook these flags to make the sale because by your own admission, this was sketchy from the onset. It’s absolutely terrible that these criminals are out here doing this but this will continue to happen until we further scrutinize these customers, no matter who they are. No, it’s not fail proof but this story certainly sounds as though it was preventable.
yea exactly its one of those things we hadnt seen fraud in so long and we were looking to move the bike in stock and we got greedy and ignored the signs in place, I think if it was more expensive we would have stopped it rigth away
This is an old scam but four different people tried it on me while I was recently attempting to sell my mountain bike. I want it I'll pay full price a check will be coming...once the check clears moving company will pick up the bike. If I'm correct, you think the check clears but then later your bank says it bounced? That seems like an awful lot of work to attempt to steal a used bicycle.
You can call AMEX and verify the card information on the phone. You should say that you are doing a card validation. Many times they will immediately hang up. AMEX will prosecute fraud as well.
Have you gotten to a point where can kind of tell someone is up to no good? Don't post it here just curious . I think that's important as I think usually the scammers or thieves have certain similar traits or behavior . They make everything more expensive for everyone else.
I am not surprised, I work in cyber sec and deal with scammers and hackers all the time, at least it was not a million dollar transfer stolen. You just got to stick with your protocols and teach your employees what to look for and never make exceptions. Too many lowlifes these days.
yea I know, its kind of like one of those things though that kept just getting by and in this world if you start accusing to soon and your wrong all hell can break loose unfortunately
You m8ght f8nd the bike on aliexpress or other overseas bike shop. Any stolen product should be notified to the port of entry too imo. Thwts how stolen goods travel out of the country and also coming in.
South Miami and you accept cards over the phone And a burner phone and he suddenly speaks perfect English That is nuts to let the bike go out the door Yikes 😳
Not the young guys fault at all. I'm sure as the business owner you push him to make sales and he's simply done that, some sales are hard, some are easy. The only person who had physical contact with the people was yourself and you still handed over the bike. So when you say "take it as a teachable moment" I hope you are saying that to yourself rather than making the kid think it was his bad.
