A customer has not been a victim yet, but this is a suspicious situation. A sporting goods business has recieved two strange orders via the hearing impaired operator from Africa. A credit card number was given for two separate orders. First order was for 100 pairs of any type of sport shoes that they could ship. Second call requested 1000 athletic shirts. Size or color did not matter. Both situations, cost was not an issue. Both orders were to be charged to the credit card and shipped to two separate locations in Africa.

Who do we suggest that the store owner report these two suspicious orders. Any particular Fed agency, state, or local authorities?

We plan to complete an SAR on the two suspicious situations. Is this enough?

Not sure that I can answer this, but I would think that you should report it to your state authorities.

Also, what are you going to use as the reason on the SAR....there was no money amount involved...........
I guess I am asking if you should report it on the SAR.....???????

The risk of a scam is very high.

As no money has been lost no crime has been comitted. They can report it to local law enforcement which will at least make a record, but other than that, IMO there isn't much else you can do.

The only thing I can think of is have the sporting goods company run a check on the credit card number to find out exactly who it is supposed to belong to if possible. I'd be concerned with ID theft or simply a stolen card at this point...

I agree that a SAR is inappropriate when you see someone else being ripped off. If the scam is directed toward the bank, that's a different matter.

My mother in law's credit cards were picked from her pocket and nearly $10,000 in credit was charged to the two cards in the next 30 mins. They purchased similar items, a great deal of "whatever could be shipped quickly" with a total of $4000 and $6000 (available credit) on each card. They couldn't even be reported by the time the transactions took place.

Warn your client. If this is a similar issue (sounds quite like it) they could take a big loss when the card report finally shows up and they've already shipped out merchandise.

Folks:

With all due respect to the other participants in this thread, I disagree with the "no crime has been committed" comments. In most jurisdictions -- federal and state -- an attempted crime is still a crime and this incident SHOULD be reported. Filing a SAR at this point isn't appropriate -- filing a report with your local law enforcement agency IS appropriate. The locals usually have a better "feel" for events occuring in the communities that they serve; they can issue statewide "alerts"; and they can act much faster. Utilizing your peer network also helps.

Contacting the credit card company for more information is essential. The company can stop all transactions pending an internal review and alert the customer, too. If the customer has multiple cards, this contact will likely trigger a review of all the cards.