LAKEPORT — A very persistent scam artist has been calling Sandi”s Interior Designs several times each day since last Wednesday, attempting to purchase merchandise at the interior design store with stolen credit card numbers, Lakeport Police Department (LPD) Lt. Brad Rasmussen confirmed Tuesday.
The suspect is unidentified, but investigating Officer Mark Hommer of LPD is on the case, Rasmussen said.
“It”s not uncommon for different types of scams to occur. This would be credit card fraud. He is using stolen credit card numbers and essentially defrauding potentially more than one person. Actually Sandi”s Interiors did a good job on this. They were suspicious of the purchase attempt and confirmed that the credit card was stolen and notified the law. That”s what we want them to do,” Rasmussen said.
Sandi”s Interior Designs Production Coordinator Andrea Leffler said the scammer has a “big fake accent that keeps changing” and is “not a smart character.” She noticed right away when he first called Wednesday that something was up.
“We got a call from an internet company that works with deaf people. He wanted to buy 90 mini blinds and said he lives in Vermont?.just the fact that he called half an hour later and was obviously not deaf was suspicious,” Leffler said.
The first credit card number the scammer gave to pay for the mini blinds was declined. The next day he called asking the store to ship the merchandise to his company, “Henry Davis Co. Inc.” in Ghana, Africa through a fake freight company called “G-Freight,” Leffler said. To do this, he asked the store to run two different credit cards for $5,000 and to wire the money through Wells Fargo to the freight company.
“The address of his company was ?Airport Residential Area in Ghana.” Right when I typed the address into Google a scam page came up?we Googled ?G-Freight” and there was nothing. Little stuff like that tells me he”s not a very smart character, especially since he gave me numbers that can be traced,” Leffler.
Leffler said a fax and phone number the scammer used came from the San Jose area and not Vermont. “And Henry Davis Co. Inc. is kind of a fake-sounding name,” Leffler said.
Sandi”s Interior Designs immediately called the credit card company MasterCard, which stopped all transactions and notified the holders of the actual credit cards, but the business continued to receive pestering phone calls from “Henry Davis” yesterday.
“We told him that we Googled G-Freight and there was nothing and he goes, ?Oh, well the company is under construction on the Web site,” so I said, ?Do you have the phone number?” And then I told him I”d just 4-1-1 it and get the information. So I do that and call him back and say there”s nothing and he goes, ?That”s really weird,” and I say ?That is really weird, isn”t it?”” Leffler said.
Sandi”s Interior Designs is run by a staff of three, and Leffler said she “thinks he thought we”re a little bigger?it”s harder to scam [a company] when there”s just us three. I think he”s targeting smaller businesses rather than a franchise. He”s probably not doing this to Wal-Mart,” Leffler said.
While the case continues to be investigated, the store is “trying to play along with him” to assist police. “We”re really trying to catch him,” Leffler said.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com.
