Quick Consultant: Printers Fail to Keep Up with Consumer Price Index

A SPECIAL ALERT FOR PRINTERS: Before I discuss some of the latest findings and features of NAQP’s just released, Bindery & Finishing Study (Second Edition), I feel compelled to issue a special alert to readers. It involves a scam being perpetrated against thousands of businesses, including hundreds of printers every single month.

Many of you will laugh, and say, “I can’t believe anyone would be so gullible as to fall for that,” but I personally know printers who have fallen victim to this scam and have lost $7,000-$10,000 as a result. I call it the “Ghanaian” scam. It is similar to the Nigerian scam letters sent out for years to individuals, but this scam concentrates on duping otherwise savvy business owners.

How does it work? You receive an email from an individual, often posing as a minister. He claims to be located somewhere in the U.S. and is seeking a quote on printing posters, flyers, or brochures. These items need to be sent to a mission church or orphanage in Ghana or some other African nation.

He describes the job in detail, most often attaching a perfectly prepared PDF document. He says he is prepared to pay for the entire job in advance with a credit card. It is typically quite a large job, and quotes can easily fall in the $3,000-$6,000 range. Forgetting for the moment that any sane printer ought to question why and how his own small printing firm has been chosen by a minister located 600 miles away, the printer prepares a quote.

Note that even in a business climate that seemingly is dominated by the Internet, printers need to exercise a great deal of caution when dealing with prospects and potential clients located hundreds of miles away.

Amazingly, shortly after it is submitted, your quote is accepted. The minister provides you with a credit card to pay for the job. If it is declined, he will supply you with another card number, saying he is using cards provided by parishioners. Eventually, you will process a card that will be approved. Wow! Now you have been paid in advance, so you have no reason not to proceed.

As the deadline for delivering the job approaches, a small wrench is tossed into the mix. The minister tells you he is too busy to pick up the job and, in any event, it needs to be shipped to Ghana. He gives you the name of a shipping firm specializing in export shipments and tells you to contact them. The shipping company says the job, because of weight and size, will cost, say, $2,900 to ship to Ghana. In addition, shipping costs must be paid in advance, prior to pick up, via a wire transfer to their bank in Ghana.

Before the red flag is raised upon hearing the phrase “wire transfer,” the minister tells you not to worry. He tells you that he will provide you with another credit card to cover the $2,900 in shipping costs and, sure enough, that card goes through as well. Being a bit naïve to this scam, you conclude you have no reason not to wire the funds to the shipper, since all your costs have been covered by one or more credit cards. Right? Nope!

Falling for the Scam

Guess what? You have just fallen for the scam. The credit cards were approved? Sure, they might have been at the time, but by now they have been reported as stolen. Soon the credit card company will issue a stop payment or a reversal of charges claim, eventually finding its way back to your bank, where your account will be debited immediately or your credit account will be faced with a “chargeback” claim—one you will rarely win.

The same thing, of course, will happen with the second credit card used to cover the wire transfer to cover shipping costs. Once again, you were careful, but also gullible. The only thing that will work very efficiently is that your wire transfer to a bank account in Ghana will go through in a couple of milliseconds. The money will disappear from your account and appear in the shipper’s account in Ghana. The funds will be gone for good and are not retrievable or reversible.