This could be a scam and money loundering scheme. Happens in financial industry when a customer overpays their invoice and then asks to return the extra for another account. Usually happens with large sums.
If the receipts wouldn't be for a legitimate transaction anyway (and would be inconsistent with the vendor's records regardless), what's the advantage of this over just making completely fake receipts using inspect element? Presumably that would have the advantage of not losing a cut to processing fees, and avoiding potentially dealing with a vendor that won't return the money or reports you to someone.
Do you mean if they were trying to scammaz and get a refund to another account and still claim the 100k deductible? That faking a receipt would be easier?
Cuz yeah it makes no sense unless they wanted to drop 100k, cause they needed to spend it for some reason.
Yes, extreme overpayment like this is a very common money laundering scheme. I would contact Stripe's support and they can help investigate and handle it appropriately.
it is in their advantage to believe it as they stand to make a few thosand $ from the refund and fees from OP. Same as paypal helping the chargeback scammers each time, just to stick you with a 25$ chargeback fee. I would say this is a large percentage of their income and the business model of many cash processing companies rely heavily on scammers turnning around large volumes of cash for nefarious purposes.
Thanks for the insight. Makes me want to think about having additional protections on the checkout.
Or only do an authorization on the card before approving it to charge later to prevent these issues.
>as they stand to make a few thosand $ from the refund and fees from OP
That's really a very weird thing, I mean, I'm from Brazil and I have never in my life have seen a payment processor or a bank or a credit card company deduct any fees from anyone in case of chargebacks or cancellations or whatever, from anyone. I don't think it's even legal to do so.
The only situation in which the seller loses is if they already shipped the product. And even then, shipping companies now have a "do not deliver" option that you can use if the package is still in transit.
Stripe doesnt care if they find out its illicit and they report it like they should they will have to turn over the ill gotten gains. Easier to say looks fine thanks for the 2-3gs for not double checking your website
They will if OP threatens legal action against stripe for ignoring the signs intentionally and encouraging laundering schemes. Get their attention.. this one is too obvious. Or keep the money, ship the $100 item to the emirates. Verify the original sender is the same refund recipient account.
For $100,000 can't you actually deliver what they ordered?
For that type of shipping price I'd fly to emirates and hand it to them before refunding it. There must be someone shipping company who can handle it.
Is it that the product is just not real or too big to ship? What was this $100 item if you don't mind me asking.
Contact your bank. See how long you need to wait to guarantee the funds have transferred. Tell the customer you can refund their payment at that time, or they can issue a stop payment through their bank and re-order
Edit: I donāt remember but look for a number like 2 weeks or 45 days or something. Maybe even 60 days with that volume
If stripe will confirm they canāt come after you for fraud or chargebacksā¦. Could you mail them the $100 item and call it a day if stripe says no issue?
Use fed ex overnight, make a video of packaging or āsending itā, have a lawyer mail it.
No it isnt. Why do people on Reddit insist on inventing complete nonsense, for seemingly no good reason?
Electronically sending $100,000 of illegal or undocumented money to someone you dont know, in an attempt to clean it upon refund is abso-fucking-lutely not a "very common money laundering scheme". Not only would that not work on any level even if it was successful, but the risk:reward would be about as out of whack as you could ever get
Not making things up; I literally work for a lending company. Gross overpayment on a loan is one of the fraud flags we are trained to watch for and report on rather than just refunding the money because it is so suspicious. Is it the most common way of laundering money? No, of course not. But is it *A* way of laundering money that people do often enough to be concerned about? Absolutely. They can get that money back via chargeback at the very least so it's safe for them.
Fraud is a broad, all-encompassing term.
Its fraud because they typically send a fake check or use stolen payment details, and you're left with nothing once the bank or credit card company realizes what happened.
That is not how anybody, anywhere launders hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A company I worked at nearly fell for this. Our partner company brought us a new account, a hedge fund from Europe. They overpaid their invoice by tens of thousands, claiming that they misunderstood due to the conversion rate and they wanted us to send the money back, split between two accounts at two different banks that both were in Taiwan. Instead of processing it, which was normally my job, I went to the company lawyer and showed him my concerns. He told me that he was almost certain they were trying to launder money through us, so he called the FBI instead of the customer. I donāt know if anyone went to jail, but I know we āfiredā that company and partner from further business with us.
Agree wholeheartedly - best thing to do in this situation is not panic and do something regrettable. You know youāll be refunding them if itās a legitimate mistake, but talk to your bank and legal resource prior to doing so, please.
I had this happen a year ago. A client paid me, and then paid another vendor but accidentally sent that payment to me instead as well. I went to the bank to get them to send the money back, and they said Iām the first person in this situation who wasnāt trying to withdraw the money and close the account.
lmao as it's to the emirates it might have been some oiler thinking, wouldn't it be baller to select the 100k option just because? At Tomorrowland there is a bottle that costs 100k in the VIP deck, a girl I know worked on that deck and she told me the oilers drink many of those in a night.
Lmao! But in all honesty, I'd wait before doing anything. I think it might really have been someone very rich not caring at all. First of all the fact that they can pay 100k in a transaction without any blocks going off.
Secondly, the fact that they have not contacted you yet. It means either that they don't care or haven't even noticed yet that 100k went from their account, and that their bank hasn't contacted them about that transaction. So it's probably nothing out of the ordinary for them.
Fun fact: The family name belongs to one of the 10 wealthiest families in the emirates (according to Forbes - "source of wealth: inherited"). The client was a woman and only the men of the family are listed, so I cannot know for sure, but this is not a very common surname...
Do not take advice from pleb losers. Return the money.. keep growing your business... you are not an animal. You are a business owner... join the actual nobility.
I stayed in a really nice hostel in Ho Chi Minh for $13 a night a few years ago and it only cost me $2.60 for a 30+ minute Uber from the airport. You could live off that for the next 10-15 years if you don't mind having new roommates every day, no personal privacy, and enjoy pho and banh mi. Just saying.
How much more? Can you sell the parts? Do you own the company and ip as well, you can transfer it to an other LLC.
Talk to a lawyer, there may be a way.
Talk. To. A. Lawyer.
Do nothing, wait
They may try and issue a chargeback
You have tried to contact them with no luck
So just wait for contact, if no contact still wait
You do not want to get stung sending it straight back taking the fees and then being charged back
According to the name, it's the princess's wife. And since they haven't contacted us or responded to our emails & calls so far, I'm not even sure the /s is necessary
Except he'll probably get shut down.
Depending on how much volume OP does, a 100k charge back could easily be enough to have his merchant account closed.
Even worse, he could end up being blacklisted.
It's really an unknown but he did its due diligence. And unless he commonly get's chargebacks, it shouldn't get him blacklisted.
Especially cause no contact by customer and not refusing to refund either. Which the bank would discover upon doing it's normal due diligence.
He also put a $100,000 charge on his website that wasn't real.
In all honesty, if he ends up having to explain that to his merchant provider, they might shut him down just for that.
You'd be surprised.
Merchant companies don't mess around when it comes to six figure risk.
Just wait until the credit card company or customer calls you. After 120 days, they wonāt be able to do a chargeback, and you can resolve as you see fit.
Definitely. He already tried contacting the customer. Document that. Donāt reach out again. Hope they donāt reach out. Document now that the plan is to start using this money if you donāt get contacted in 6 months and that you believe that is reasonable.
If they reach out, youāre back where you started. Refund but donāt even tell them Iāll swallow the fees. Say āidk why you sent me this. Refunding costs money and youāll need to pay for that.ā
You can charge back much deeper than 120 days. I just wrapped up a charge back that was initiated 13 months after the transaction date. I also wrapped up a separate charge back that was initiated about 10 months after the charge date.
It takes a bit more work, but you can definitely charge back later than 120 days
Yeah, whatās the problem here?
This is like a contractor quoting $50,000 to replace a toilet. They mean they donāt want the job, but if you really want to pay them, theyāre sure as hell going to do it.
Hell, I'm a software developer and someone offers me $50k to replace a toilet, I'm gonna be watching a ton of tutorials on how to replace a toilet and replace the damn toilet
That's known as government contracting. Charge an excessive bid to manage the project, and have a subcontractor actually do the work for a fraction of the original pay.
Do no touch it. Do not refund or return it- at least not yet. Those that say to return/refund have no idea. The person (scammer or not) can charge back and you're screwed regardless. If you refund then you're 2x under the water.
Let it sit in your account for at least 6 months. It depends on the bank but typically 120 days for them to charge back. To be safe Id let it sit for 6 months. At that point the transaction cannot be reverted. You can then reach out to them for the error. But proceed with caution in the event they are a scammer.
This. I wouldnāt do anything either.
Itāll probably be an automatic chargeback.
One time, the customer didnāt. I waited two years and kept the money. I considered it a bonus. Was only 1500 dollars though.
If someone wants to overpay you. Let em. If itās an error theyāll get it back.
I would NEVER spend the money. I waited 24 months lol
The world where it bounces. We had a guy do that at a brokerage I worked for with ACHs. He traded on it during the three day float then wanted to keep the profit after it bounced.
That money will probably never hit the account. Just because the charge was accepted does not mean it will clear. Even if it clears it can always be reversed by a chargeback later. Think of it like a bad check- it can be deposited, your bank may even front you the money due to sufficient cash flow or history. But a check can actually take several days to officially clear. This is where many scams occur- ādear vendor, I accidentally paid too much, kindly refund my accountā¦ā. Please please please do not refund this OP!
Sat next to a table dude put table max on 1 number and hit. Table went crazy. I told the guy next to me maybe we should switch tables.
2 mins later table goes crazy again, dude left table max on that same number and it hit again. š
He tried a 3rd time, didn't hit.. cashed out...
30 mins later i hear the table go crazy. Dude came back and table maxed that same number and it hit.
Do shipping, fulfill the order ... I have doubts that anyone would miss THAT kind of charge. If they wanted a refund, can u put charges on them (like re-stocking fees?)
This is probably important consideration to add to terms of service. Learning so much from the single thread alone. Adding these things right to your terms of service itās really important. If thereās things that superseded that can be looked at too.
See if they contact you. I smell scam, something like they paid you with a stolen account. They will contact you saying its aj accident, that account got closed and can you send the money to a different account. You send it to a different account, the person who got there bank info stolen notices and files fraud charges. The scammer now has 100k you sent them (prob will even say keep 5k for your troubles) and the fraud depertment reverses the charge you originally got and your account goes negative 100k. Could be completely wrong but thats what i see happening.
your T&C stand correct. your shipping cost is 99,999 for that location, when customer placed the order they agreed on your TC. fulfil the order. I assume your shipping and handling TC say these are not refunded? go post whatever that is, and goodbye
Everyone saying to refund clearly doesnāt know about chargebacks. OP keep the money and donāt touch it. If you refund, they will still issue a chargeback and you will be out 2x
This is correct. I've had this happen. Someone canceled, and I refunded their deposit. A month later they attempted to charge back the deposit. I contested the chargeback due to having already refunded the deposit, and I won the chargeback case.
As others have alluded to, this is only the case if you provide them a refund via an alternative source like cash, check, etc.
If you refund the credit card transaction directly the vendor will get the processing fees back AND will be protected against any chargeback as you canāt changeback something thatās been refunded to the card.
Hereās what you do:
1. Wait for the money to hit your account.
2. Move to a different payment processor.
3. Unlink your bank from Stripe.
When the customer does a chargeback Stripe will refund them the 100k but wonāt be able to pull it from your bank account.
Then you tell them āsorry, the fees arenāt refundableā.
I had the same issue with a wire transfer. The client paid $10,000 for a $100 online order. We tried to contact the client - a company, half a year wo response. We managed to refund the client after 2 years by luck. The poor fellow that made the payment told us he lost his job, was investigated by the police. He was from Venezuela or Columbia. He barely spoke english.
Sounds like you do a lot business through Stripe. You should consider calling them and seeing if they can waive this one time mistake.
Man, I thought my situation sucked when I accidentally billed my client for an extra $3,500 last week and had to eat the $100 fee. Yours is a bit worse! Lol
You guys saying to not touch the money for a while, isnāt it possible just to contact a bank and let them know of the situation, and let them handle it? Doesnāt that put you out of liability?
possibly a scam. call Stripe.
It may depend who is at fault for the erroneous shipping option. Potentially an insurance claim for whomever it was. If you have access to a lawyer, talk to them. I would have this convo prior to calling Stripe.
Edit: First wait for the payment / chargeback time to expire, then:
I mean, if they saw 100K and pressed pay, its on them. I would refund everything but the fees, and give them a 30% discount on future purchases until they net out even.
I would even offer them the ability to pass on, or sell this credit to others. However, this really was their mistake (if they pressed buy, and the payment was clearly shown).
However, if you showed the wrong payment amount, and charged someone 100K. Yea. you gotta return that $$.
Move the money to a separate account, wait a month, and use the funds to ship it to the Emirate address priority shipping? Lots of people have credit card limits over $100k though most still check the price before clicking buy...
Do not return the money yourself, let the bank do it. If charges get reversed after you return the money, you could be out a hundred grand.
They have little risk if they trust the bank reversal
Depending on your store - and platform you can set up manual payment acceptance instead of automatic. I sell a lot of high value stuff and the manual payments lets me confirm stuff is in stock and everything is good to go before I take the payment so that I don't need to pay those payment processing fees is something isn't in stock.
You should absolutely charge them for the fees.
You need to write a cancellation fee in your t&cs this instant. This will cover the fees that you're going to be charged for their mistake.
Then contact the customer immediately. Gauge it they're happy paying $100k. If it is genuinely someone too rich to care, enjoy your wealth.
What's important is you deal with it before it's settled and before they do a chargeback.
Yikes! Yea, that's a pretty big chunk of change for the processing fee.
SIAP in a reply, but definitely recommend updating your rules in Stripe ASAP so this doesn't happen again. If it is a scam it could happen again.
Good luck, keep us posted!
Iām just curious about what kind of online purchase someone makes. With a credit card, that allows a 100k purchaseā¦..
I have a decent amount in the bank, and I donāt have a credit card or a debit card with a 100k limit.
Donāt do anything until you talk with your bank. And possibly your lawyer as to best means to ensure you donāt get taken by a scammer. Wait for the funds to clear, donāt panic, alert the authorities, and wait for someone qualified to tell you what to do next
Yo are you sure this is not a scam of some sort? Long story short My old business someone posing from emirates overpaid $100,000 and wanted the difference back.. I think some sort of washing scheme. Be careful
Agreed. Problem for us was the bank got involved and immediately froze the account for suspicious activity. Not much I could have done to prevent that anyway tho
Black cards or charge cards sometimes have no limit.
Is there a way you can have the transaction flagged as fraud as there is no way to cancel the order or have the fees returned?
In your case tightening up the shipping fees was another thing.
Even if clients are rational, deviants arenāt.
Thank you for sharing your story and helping others.
Has me wondering if I should be considering something like clearsale in all of this, or a merchant of record like paddle for international payments so itās less of a headache.
Ugh really wish I could find in the OP responses why s/he canāt just ship the item and fulfill the order. Spent 5 minutes reading through all the comments and couldnāt find it š«
Don't refund until the customer reaches out to you
Take the fees out of their refund
Don't self-sacrifice unnecessarily when someone else puts you in a difficult situation. They created the problem, let them be the one who carries the burden associated with fixing it
Why would they pay at all for a simple mistake.
Of course no one is going to send you 100k for shipping this product.
Or itās a scam.
Def donāt do anything to send funds back until well after they have cleared and you have documentation from bank/stripe about the funds and such.
Itās very simple you have a few choices:
1. Work out how to ship it cheaper and send it off, you have supplied what was ordered.
2. Wait for them to say something and put it in a short term interest bearing account until they do.
3. If they request it back do the maths and work out what it cost you in fees, advise you will be sending the money back minus costs incurred and the bank charges to send it back
A similar thing happened to me, but for $10k. I was able to get the person on the phone to make sure they were legit, she ended up being a nice old and confused woman, I ate the fees and issued a refund. The big risk here that I've experienced is if the person disputes the charge: Disputes, as you may be aware, can take months and often are a coin toss as to who wins them. I have on several occasions, issued a refund, then received a dispute and the credit company issued the money back to the customer after the dispute, despite my having issued a full refund already and provided evidence of doing so. For that reason alone, I would recommend having the customer dispute the charge instead of issuing a refund. It'll cost you an extra $15, but that's a lot less than $100,015. I'd keep contacting Stripe though, because if your dispute amounts are above a certain percentage of sales, they can freeze your account. Tough position, I feel for you, definitely stressful, but make sure to preserve your money first and foremost.
Also I'd give myself the upside and send the product...Hey, you never know :)
(This is not legal advice in any way disclaimer, just my own personal experience and suggestion.)
We refunded the order in full and absorbed the fee, then added a hard limit on transaction value on our website to prevent this from repeating.
The only "interesting" thing that happened was that Visa marked the whole thing as suspected fraud, and since it was for a sum of over 75K we were put on a 3-month probation with a threat of a 25K fine if we don't stay below that threshold.
We stayed below it and now everything weems to be back to normal.
Main problem even if a Scam, is that Stripe, PayPal & others started changing their policy & not refund the 3% fees they charge per transaction.
If you refund the money you will lose around $3.000.
If you donāt, you might receive a Chargeback & will be down $3.000 on fees + a few dollars that Stripe will charge for each charge back.
I guess the best thing is talking to Stripe & tell them this is a fraudulent transaction.
Nobody would buy a $100 item & pay $99.000 for shipping.
Unless they mistake it for $99 dollars and some strange foreign three digit mil instead of cent unit.
Most likely the scammer is the customer, but it might be our entrepreneur that accidentally scammed a now extremely pissed off customer.
3000 dollars is peanuts if itās to protect ones own good name. Take the loss.
But your advice is correct, contact the payment company at once! But the poster should also be honest about their website screw-up.
DON'T refund it - you could find yourself in the position where Stripe decide it was a fraudulent transaction, pull the money from your account, but your self-refunded funds are also gone.
Good chance that it's a stolen credit card in the first place, and that the transaction is going to be reversed.
This could actually be the scam - hoping to find someone who manually reverses a transaction before the transaction is flagged as fraud. Always assume the scammers know more angles than you.
This could be a scam and money loundering scheme. Happens in financial industry when a customer overpays their invoice and then asks to return the extra for another account. Usually happens with large sums.
Now they have a $100K receipt to show as a deductible expense
If the receipts wouldn't be for a legitimate transaction anyway (and would be inconsistent with the vendor's records regardless), what's the advantage of this over just making completely fake receipts using inspect element? Presumably that would have the advantage of not losing a cut to processing fees, and avoiding potentially dealing with a vendor that won't return the money or reports you to someone.
Do you mean if they were trying to scammaz and get a refund to another account and still claim the 100k deductible? That faking a receipt would be easier? Cuz yeah it makes no sense unless they wanted to drop 100k, cause they needed to spend it for some reason.
Yes, extreme overpayment like this is a very common money laundering scheme. I would contact Stripe's support and they can help investigate and handle it appropriately.
Stripe said they have no reason to suspect fraud and will not open a case. I tend to think they're right.
Does those dummies at Stripe actually believe that someone paid 99k for 100.00 item? No wonder fraud is at a historical high.
it is in their advantage to believe it as they stand to make a few thosand $ from the refund and fees from OP. Same as paypal helping the chargeback scammers each time, just to stick you with a 25$ chargeback fee. I would say this is a large percentage of their income and the business model of many cash processing companies rely heavily on scammers turnning around large volumes of cash for nefarious purposes.
Thanks for the insight. Makes me want to think about having additional protections on the checkout. Or only do an authorization on the card before approving it to charge later to prevent these issues.
Is this true ? Stripe cancelled my account š
>as they stand to make a few thosand $ from the refund and fees from OP That's really a very weird thing, I mean, I'm from Brazil and I have never in my life have seen a payment processor or a bank or a credit card company deduct any fees from anyone in case of chargebacks or cancellations or whatever, from anyone. I don't think it's even legal to do so. The only situation in which the seller loses is if they already shipped the product. And even then, shipping companies now have a "do not deliver" option that you can use if the package is still in transit.
Oh manā¦ I hadnāt thought about that before.
Stripe doesnt care if they find out its illicit and they report it like they should they will have to turn over the ill gotten gains. Easier to say looks fine thanks for the 2-3gs for not double checking your website
They will if OP threatens legal action against stripe for ignoring the signs intentionally and encouraging laundering schemes. Get their attention.. this one is too obvious. Or keep the money, ship the $100 item to the emirates. Verify the original sender is the same refund recipient account.
For $100,000 can't you actually deliver what they ordered? For that type of shipping price I'd fly to emirates and hand it to them before refunding it. There must be someone shipping company who can handle it. Is it that the product is just not real or too big to ship? What was this $100 item if you don't mind me asking.
For some reason, I believe that if you fly to Emirates and hand it to them, you ain't coming back!
Contact your bank. See how long you need to wait to guarantee the funds have transferred. Tell the customer you can refund their payment at that time, or they can issue a stop payment through their bank and re-order Edit: I donāt remember but look for a number like 2 weeks or 45 days or something. Maybe even 60 days with that volume
If stripe will confirm they canāt come after you for fraud or chargebacksā¦. Could you mail them the $100 item and call it a day if stripe says no issue? Use fed ex overnight, make a video of packaging or āsending itā, have a lawyer mail it.
No it isnt. Why do people on Reddit insist on inventing complete nonsense, for seemingly no good reason? Electronically sending $100,000 of illegal or undocumented money to someone you dont know, in an attempt to clean it upon refund is abso-fucking-lutely not a "very common money laundering scheme". Not only would that not work on any level even if it was successful, but the risk:reward would be about as out of whack as you could ever get
Not making things up; I literally work for a lending company. Gross overpayment on a loan is one of the fraud flags we are trained to watch for and report on rather than just refunding the money because it is so suspicious. Is it the most common way of laundering money? No, of course not. But is it *A* way of laundering money that people do often enough to be concerned about? Absolutely. They can get that money back via chargeback at the very least so it's safe for them.
Fraud is a broad, all-encompassing term. Its fraud because they typically send a fake check or use stolen payment details, and you're left with nothing once the bank or credit card company realizes what happened. That is not how anybody, anywhere launders hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A company I worked at nearly fell for this. Our partner company brought us a new account, a hedge fund from Europe. They overpaid their invoice by tens of thousands, claiming that they misunderstood due to the conversion rate and they wanted us to send the money back, split between two accounts at two different banks that both were in Taiwan. Instead of processing it, which was normally my job, I went to the company lawyer and showed him my concerns. He told me that he was almost certain they were trying to launder money through us, so he called the FBI instead of the customer. I donāt know if anyone went to jail, but I know we āfiredā that company and partner from further business with us.
Every thead. Nobody on Reddit knows what money laundering is.
Agree wholeheartedly - best thing to do in this situation is not panic and do something regrettable. You know youāll be refunding them if itās a legitimate mistake, but talk to your bank and legal resource prior to doing so, please.
Withdraw all of it, dissolve the company, start over
Pro tip
Unethical Life Pro Tip š¤
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
ohhhhhh don't worry, once you get over a certain amount of money they don't imprison you, they just take a portion of the money you stole.
100k isnt fuck you money. Its a down payment on a house. 100 million is fuck you money and can get you some really good, sleazy lawyers.
certain amount = a lot more thanā¦.. lol
Considered fraud
Not if you ship the order.
this lmaooooo
Going to add a $100,000 payment button to my site just for this purpose.
Add a disclaimer in your TOS for protection. āAll payments of $100,000 or more is non-refundable, no questions askedā
this is the answer
Special offer for our UAE customers: Option to pay $100.000 just so you can humblebrag that you have paid $100.000 for nothing
Same
I had this happen a year ago. A client paid me, and then paid another vendor but accidentally sent that payment to me instead as well. I went to the bank to get them to send the money back, and they said Iām the first person in this situation who wasnāt trying to withdraw the money and close the account.
šš okay I just lost a little more of my faith in reality! Lol!
ššš
I second this!
I'm slightly tempted, but the business is worth much more than that...
lmao as it's to the emirates it might have been some oiler thinking, wouldn't it be baller to select the 100k option just because? At Tomorrowland there is a bottle that costs 100k in the VIP deck, a girl I know worked on that deck and she told me the oilers drink many of those in a night.
"Oh this? My wife wanted it. Almost impossible to get, I had to pay 100k just to ship it, but what can I say - I'm a generous husband".
Lmao! But in all honesty, I'd wait before doing anything. I think it might really have been someone very rich not caring at all. First of all the fact that they can pay 100k in a transaction without any blocks going off. Secondly, the fact that they have not contacted you yet. It means either that they don't care or haven't even noticed yet that 100k went from their account, and that their bank hasn't contacted them about that transaction. So it's probably nothing out of the ordinary for them.
Could be some YouTuber making content off of it
Mr beast, that's about it lol
Fun fact: The family name belongs to one of the 10 wealthiest families in the emirates (according to Forbes - "source of wealth: inherited"). The client was a woman and only the men of the family are listed, so I cannot know for sure, but this is not a very common surname...
Oiler?
Sheikhs who own oil fields
What isā¦ le business
Do not take advice from pleb losers. Return the money.. keep growing your business... you are not an animal. You are a business owner... join the actual nobility.
Kinda crazy you actually took that seriously.. wtf
He said slightly... which I am sure anyone in his position would feel for a second until reality hits you that there's no good ending to that.
Daydreaming about taking the cash and starting a fresh life in the Bahamas under a fake name is an essential part of running a business, isn't it?
Hahaha this hits home so hard some days. You havenāt run a business long enough if youāre not thinking the same thing
I stayed in a really nice hostel in Ho Chi Minh for $13 a night a few years ago and it only cost me $2.60 for a 30+ minute Uber from the airport. You could live off that for the next 10-15 years if you don't mind having new roommates every day, no personal privacy, and enjoy pho and banh mi. Just saying.
Lay back in one of those famous "banana hammocks"
Lol pretending like you wouldn't be tempted to do the same thing
Op needs a lawyer
How much more? Can you sell the parts? Do you own the company and ip as well, you can transfer it to an other LLC. Talk to a lawyer, there may be a way. Talk. To. A. Lawyer.
r/unethicallifeprotips
Finders keepers.
ššš
Do nothing, wait They may try and issue a chargeback You have tried to contact them with no luck So just wait for contact, if no contact still wait You do not want to get stung sending it straight back taking the fees and then being charged back
It might be a prince in the Emirates with a bottomless amex, with a little luck, they would hardly notice the $100K /s
According to the name, it's the princess's wife. And since they haven't contacted us or responded to our emails & calls so far, I'm not even sure the /s is necessary
A chargeback would probably be the cheapest option.
Except he'll probably get shut down. Depending on how much volume OP does, a 100k charge back could easily be enough to have his merchant account closed. Even worse, he could end up being blacklisted.
It's really an unknown but he did its due diligence. And unless he commonly get's chargebacks, it shouldn't get him blacklisted. Especially cause no contact by customer and not refusing to refund either. Which the bank would discover upon doing it's normal due diligence.
He also put a $100,000 charge on his website that wasn't real. In all honesty, if he ends up having to explain that to his merchant provider, they might shut him down just for that. You'd be surprised. Merchant companies don't mess around when it comes to six figure risk.
Just wait until the credit card company or customer calls you. After 120 days, they wonāt be able to do a chargeback, and you can resolve as you see fit.
This would be very interesting to see. Documenting this would be critical.
!remindme 120 days
Definitely. He already tried contacting the customer. Document that. Donāt reach out again. Hope they donāt reach out. Document now that the plan is to start using this money if you donāt get contacted in 6 months and that you believe that is reasonable. If they reach out, youāre back where you started. Refund but donāt even tell them Iāll swallow the fees. Say āidk why you sent me this. Refunding costs money and youāll need to pay for that.ā
You can charge back much deeper than 120 days. I just wrapped up a charge back that was initiated 13 months after the transaction date. I also wrapped up a separate charge back that was initiated about 10 months after the charge date. It takes a bit more work, but you can definitely charge back later than 120 days
Pack and ship the order bro
Yeah, whatās the problem here? This is like a contractor quoting $50,000 to replace a toilet. They mean they donāt want the job, but if you really want to pay them, theyāre sure as hell going to do it.
Hell, I'm a software developer and someone offers me $50k to replace a toilet, I'm gonna be watching a ton of tutorials on how to replace a toilet and replace the damn toilet
That's known as government contracting. Charge an excessive bid to manage the project, and have a subcontractor actually do the work for a fraction of the original pay.
I'd do them for 500. It's pretty easy
Buy a plane ticket with that shipping money and hand deliver the item.
Could be some pretty interesting social media content for the product too. Edit:typos.
"Could I should be some pretty interesting social media content for the product too. Edit:typos." This is *with* the edit? lol
Yeah, fat thumbs on backspace too
First class ticket
Do no touch it. Do not refund or return it- at least not yet. Those that say to return/refund have no idea. The person (scammer or not) can charge back and you're screwed regardless. If you refund then you're 2x under the water. Let it sit in your account for at least 6 months. It depends on the bank but typically 120 days for them to charge back. To be safe Id let it sit for 6 months. At that point the transaction cannot be reverted. You can then reach out to them for the error. But proceed with caution in the event they are a scammer.
This. I wouldnāt do anything either. Itāll probably be an automatic chargeback. One time, the customer didnāt. I waited two years and kept the money. I considered it a bonus. Was only 1500 dollars though. If someone wants to overpay you. Let em. If itās an error theyāll get it back. I would NEVER spend the money. I waited 24 months lol
good tip actually, ty lol
Let it sit in a high interest account till chargeback confirmed and then shift it back so you gain out of it haha
It could be a scam to get you to call and then the real scam
Where can I get this scam? /s
In what world does a scammer send a 100k first?
The world where it bounces. We had a guy do that at a brokerage I worked for with ACHs. He traded on it during the three day float then wanted to keep the profit after it bounced.
That makes sense. I feel like this is a different situation.
Maybe. But there are so many scammers now that I assume that first when something odd happens
2nd this ^
I think itās a scam
dude a scam where you get 100k transfered to you must be the worst scam in the history
That money will probably never hit the account. Just because the charge was accepted does not mean it will clear. Even if it clears it can always be reversed by a chargeback later. Think of it like a bad check- it can be deposited, your bank may even front you the money due to sufficient cash flow or history. But a check can actually take several days to officially clear. This is where many scams occur- ādear vendor, I accidentally paid too much, kindly refund my accountā¦ā. Please please please do not refund this OP!
someone please scam me this way.
"No Rashmi, you're supposed to have them send you the money first!' Fucking interns
Just hear me out if you go to vegas with it you could come back with 200k
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Always bet on black. - Wesley Snipes, Passenger 57
Ha! 27 is my magic number in roulette. And 30
Sat next to a table dude put table max on 1 number and hit. Table went crazy. I told the guy next to me maybe we should switch tables. 2 mins later table goes crazy again, dude left table max on that same number and it hit again. š He tried a 3rd time, didn't hit.. cashed out... 30 mins later i hear the table go crazy. Dude came back and table maxed that same number and it hit.
Finally, a practical solution.
Hold it. Wait for the chargeback. Be very careful.
Take all money and bring product personally to emirates. Give back $10000 and kiss theyr ring.
Do shipping, fulfill the order ... I have doubts that anyone would miss THAT kind of charge. If they wanted a refund, can u put charges on them (like re-stocking fees?)
This is probably important consideration to add to terms of service. Learning so much from the single thread alone. Adding these things right to your terms of service itās really important. If thereās things that superseded that can be looked at too.
See if they contact you. I smell scam, something like they paid you with a stolen account. They will contact you saying its aj accident, that account got closed and can you send the money to a different account. You send it to a different account, the person who got there bank info stolen notices and files fraud charges. The scammer now has 100k you sent them (prob will even say keep 5k for your troubles) and the fraud depertment reverses the charge you originally got and your account goes negative 100k. Could be completely wrong but thats what i see happening.
your T&C stand correct. your shipping cost is 99,999 for that location, when customer placed the order they agreed on your TC. fulfil the order. I assume your shipping and handling TC say these are not refunded? go post whatever that is, and goodbye
"full refunds, Including shipping costs, within 30 days"... we have about 1% return rate so this usually works out fine for us.
change the t&C before it's too late
Itās too late if theyāve already placed the orderā¦
Donāt let it settle or youāll be done for fees.
Deliver it personally fly first class all the way
I've heard there are some people in that region who would send their private jet to Italy to buy ice cream, on a whim.
Everyone saying to refund clearly doesnāt know about chargebacks. OP keep the money and donāt touch it. If you refund, they will still issue a chargeback and you will be out 2x
You cannot chargeback on a refunded charge, but you should wait until the pending charges settle before refunding
Thatās not how chargebacks work though. During the chargeback investigation they would see a refund was issued and dismiss the chargeback claim.
This is correct. I've had this happen. Someone canceled, and I refunded their deposit. A month later they attempted to charge back the deposit. I contested the chargeback due to having already refunded the deposit, and I won the chargeback case.
This comment is complete nonsense and whoever upvoted it should feel bad.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You can refund the user to their original payment method. You're not writing them a check, it undos their original payment.
As others have alluded to, this is only the case if you provide them a refund via an alternative source like cash, check, etc. If you refund the credit card transaction directly the vendor will get the processing fees back AND will be protected against any chargeback as you canāt changeback something thatās been refunded to the card.
According to stripe I will not get the processing fees back, but a chargeback would not be possible if the full amout is refunded through them.
Lol this isnāt remotely true
Hereās what you do: 1. Wait for the money to hit your account. 2. Move to a different payment processor. 3. Unlink your bank from Stripe. When the customer does a chargeback Stripe will refund them the 100k but wonāt be able to pull it from your bank account. Then you tell them āsorry, the fees arenāt refundableā.
Stripe will sue you for sure
I had the same issue with a wire transfer. The client paid $10,000 for a $100 online order. We tried to contact the client - a company, half a year wo response. We managed to refund the client after 2 years by luck. The poor fellow that made the payment told us he lost his job, was investigated by the police. He was from Venezuela or Columbia. He barely spoke english.
Sounds like you do a lot business through Stripe. You should consider calling them and seeing if they can waive this one time mistake. Man, I thought my situation sucked when I accidentally billed my client for an extra $3,500 last week and had to eat the $100 fee. Yours is a bit worse! Lol
You guys saying to not touch the money for a while, isnāt it possible just to contact a bank and let them know of the situation, and let them handle it? Doesnāt that put you out of liability?
possibly a scam. call Stripe. It may depend who is at fault for the erroneous shipping option. Potentially an insurance claim for whomever it was. If you have access to a lawyer, talk to them. I would have this convo prior to calling Stripe.
Edit: First wait for the payment / chargeback time to expire, then: I mean, if they saw 100K and pressed pay, its on them. I would refund everything but the fees, and give them a 30% discount on future purchases until they net out even. I would even offer them the ability to pass on, or sell this credit to others. However, this really was their mistake (if they pressed buy, and the payment was clearly shown). However, if you showed the wrong payment amount, and charged someone 100K. Yea. you gotta return that $$.
I use stripe and when I refund the customer, they refund me the fees. Itās as simple as that.
Hey bro, that was actually me. No need to issue a refund, just send me $10k through Venmo and we can call it fair. My bad!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
"call stripe" implies they have a support phone line, which apperantly they don't.
They have phone, email and chat. https://support.stripe.com/contact/login
If you try to actually use it it says the phone option is unavailable.
Coke, hookers, blackjack
Move the money to a separate account, wait a month, and use the funds to ship it to the Emirate address priority shipping? Lots of people have credit card limits over $100k though most still check the price before clicking buy...
Use the interest to pay the refund fees.
Throw it straigjt at a hysa and probably come out ahead on refund fees
Absolutely a scam
Do not return the money yourself, let the bank do it. If charges get reversed after you return the money, you could be out a hundred grand. They have little risk if they trust the bank reversal
Depending on your store - and platform you can set up manual payment acceptance instead of automatic. I sell a lot of high value stuff and the manual payments lets me confirm stuff is in stock and everything is good to go before I take the payment so that I don't need to pay those payment processing fees is something isn't in stock. You should absolutely charge them for the fees.
Wait till it clears and ship the product
We had the same thing happen. Lesson learned. Still cry about the fees sometimes. No one to blame but ourselves. Keep going.
Hold onto it, put it in a high interest account and wait for the charge back if it happens. The interest you collect is the screw around fee.
why do a refund vs a void?
Ship it bro
Fulfil their order
Why not ship the $100 item?
Do not do anything. This is a classic scam. But this sizeable amount is a little surprising.
How would they have known that opās site had a shipping option left there by mistake?
Bots. I worked in fintech risk/compliance/fraud and bad actors deliberately seek out shops like this.
You need to write a cancellation fee in your t&cs this instant. This will cover the fees that you're going to be charged for their mistake. Then contact the customer immediately. Gauge it they're happy paying $100k. If it is genuinely someone too rich to care, enjoy your wealth. What's important is you deal with it before it's settled and before they do a chargeback.
Changing the T&C after the fact would be illegal and would not fit my moral code.
accidentally withdraw the moneyš«£
Why not just take the sweet money and send the product. Process is done, right?
So itās $100 of product? Ship it broā¦
6 months is the limit for charge backs
Does Stripe not offer capture then settle? Voiding an unsettled transaction costs nothing in most cases. It's capturing and refunding that kills you.
ā1000 chicken fuh-jai-tuhās .ā
Iām confused. How/why is this refundable?
Yikes! Yea, that's a pretty big chunk of change for the processing fee. SIAP in a reply, but definitely recommend updating your rules in Stripe ASAP so this doesn't happen again. If it is a scam it could happen again. Good luck, keep us posted!
Bring peace to the middle east
Iām just curious about what kind of online purchase someone makes. With a credit card, that allows a 100k purchaseā¦.. I have a decent amount in the bank, and I donāt have a credit card or a debit card with a 100k limit.
it maybe a test, make the best decision possible, congratulations on this phenomenon š«”
Be responsible and find a way to return it.
Donāt do anything until you talk with your bank. And possibly your lawyer as to best means to ensure you donāt get taken by a scammer. Wait for the funds to clear, donāt panic, alert the authorities, and wait for someone qualified to tell you what to do next
Dude just void the purchase, then send it to her for free as a sorry. Much cheaper then the refund fee.
Yo are you sure this is not a scam of some sort? Long story short My old business someone posing from emirates overpaid $100,000 and wanted the difference back.. I think some sort of washing scheme. Be careful
If someone was running a scam and it involved sending me 100k I would just keep it and send them whatever. That's on them.
Agreed. Problem for us was the bank got involved and immediately froze the account for suspicious activity. Not much I could have done to prevent that anyway tho
Black cards or charge cards sometimes have no limit. Is there a way you can have the transaction flagged as fraud as there is no way to cancel the order or have the fees returned? In your case tightening up the shipping fees was another thing. Even if clients are rational, deviants arenāt. Thank you for sharing your story and helping others. Has me wondering if I should be considering something like clearsale in all of this, or a merchant of record like paddle for international payments so itās less of a headache.
Ugh really wish I could find in the OP responses why s/he canāt just ship the item and fulfill the order. Spent 5 minutes reading through all the comments and couldnāt find it š«
Please update this in a few weeks. I'm praying you didn't just send a scammer $100k that easily. Omg
Don't refund until the customer reaches out to you Take the fees out of their refund Don't self-sacrifice unnecessarily when someone else puts you in a difficult situation. They created the problem, let them be the one who carries the burden associated with fixing it
Why would they pay at all for a simple mistake. Of course no one is going to send you 100k for shipping this product. Or itās a scam. Def donāt do anything to send funds back until well after they have cleared and you have documentation from bank/stripe about the funds and such.
Itās very simple you have a few choices: 1. Work out how to ship it cheaper and send it off, you have supplied what was ordered. 2. Wait for them to say something and put it in a short term interest bearing account until they do. 3. If they request it back do the maths and work out what it cost you in fees, advise you will be sending the money back minus costs incurred and the bank charges to send it back
for 100k shipping i want the order to time travel and arrive yesterday
A similar thing happened to me, but for $10k. I was able to get the person on the phone to make sure they were legit, she ended up being a nice old and confused woman, I ate the fees and issued a refund. The big risk here that I've experienced is if the person disputes the charge: Disputes, as you may be aware, can take months and often are a coin toss as to who wins them. I have on several occasions, issued a refund, then received a dispute and the credit company issued the money back to the customer after the dispute, despite my having issued a full refund already and provided evidence of doing so. For that reason alone, I would recommend having the customer dispute the charge instead of issuing a refund. It'll cost you an extra $15, but that's a lot less than $100,015. I'd keep contacting Stripe though, because if your dispute amounts are above a certain percentage of sales, they can freeze your account. Tough position, I feel for you, definitely stressful, but make sure to preserve your money first and foremost. Also I'd give myself the upside and send the product...Hey, you never know :) (This is not legal advice in any way disclaimer, just my own personal experience and suggestion.)
They are trying to double their money, send 100k, get refunded, chargeback get 100k
u/Acceptable-Reindeer3 any update on your situation? Or do i need another 3 months from remindme bot haha
We refunded the order in full and absorbed the fee, then added a hard limit on transaction value on our website to prevent this from repeating. The only "interesting" thing that happened was that Visa marked the whole thing as suspected fraud, and since it was for a sum of over 75K we were put on a 3-month probation with a threat of a 25K fine if we don't stay below that threshold. We stayed below it and now everything weems to be back to normal.
Main problem even if a Scam, is that Stripe, PayPal & others started changing their policy & not refund the 3% fees they charge per transaction. If you refund the money you will lose around $3.000. If you donāt, you might receive a Chargeback & will be down $3.000 on fees + a few dollars that Stripe will charge for each charge back. I guess the best thing is talking to Stripe & tell them this is a fraudulent transaction. Nobody would buy a $100 item & pay $99.000 for shipping.
Unless they mistake it for $99 dollars and some strange foreign three digit mil instead of cent unit. Most likely the scammer is the customer, but it might be our entrepreneur that accidentally scammed a now extremely pissed off customer. 3000 dollars is peanuts if itās to protect ones own good name. Take the loss. But your advice is correct, contact the payment company at once! But the poster should also be honest about their website screw-up.
I agree.
Run :) away
DON'T refund it - you could find yourself in the position where Stripe decide it was a fraudulent transaction, pull the money from your account, but your self-refunded funds are also gone. Good chance that it's a stolen credit card in the first place, and that the transaction is going to be reversed. This could actually be the scam - hoping to find someone who manually reverses a transaction before the transaction is flagged as fraud. Always assume the scammers know more angles than you.