Another Day, Another Scam

This one does not concern mobile home park management per se.  It does, however, concern greed, deception, fraud, and lame excuses.  The broad outlines of the manufactured housing industry are never distant.

In December of last year, my credit card number was stolen.  A bunch of fraudulent charges were made on it, including a charge for $647.98 from a business called Wasserstein Home, based in Faribault, MN.  I reported the charges.  They were reversed, the card was cancelled, and a new card was sent.

Theft of that particular credit card number has become a regular occurrence for me.  The card pays points in the form of credits to our childrens’ 529 plans.  Numbah Two Baby is a junior in high school, and Numbah One is threatening to go to medical school, so we need all the money we can get for tuition.  I use that card as often as I can.  Inter alia, I use it at gas stations when I travel upstate to visit the parks.  I understand that scammers often use records from gas stations to steal account numbers.  I suspect that that is where some of the fraudsters have stolen my account numbers.  At any rate, I have come to expect the problem.  I check my activity online regularly.  The credit card companies are good about flagging suspicious spending behavior.  Every few months, I get a new card.

I am not sure whether Wasserstein Home is a legitimate business or not.  They have a professional looking website.  The phone number that is listed for them on the web site, 307-732-5666, produces a pre-recorded, tinny recording of a woman speaking a few sentences in Cantonese, with no option to speak with a live person.  For customer service, they offer email and Facebook chat.  If you google “Wasserstein Home – customer service”, you will see that pretty much nobody likes them.  So, I am not sure whether they are scammers themselves, or whether they are simply an on-line business with crappy customer service who scammers find convenient to use when they lay on fraudulent charges.

When I looked at my credit card bill for March, I saw a charge for $647.98 from Wassertein Home.  The charge was made on December 12.  However, it posted on March 30.  I immediately called the credit card company.  The operator was a young woman with a Filipina accent.  A dog was barking loudly in the background as we spoke.  She said, Hello, MasterCard, How can I help you?  I said,

-Can you make that dog shut up?  I can’t hear you.

-Sorry, sir.  It is the neighbor’s dog.

A baby started to cry, and I heard the operator shushing.  She said,

-Excuse me, sir, can I put you on a brief hold?

-I’ll call back.  It sounds like you have a lot on your plate.

When I called back, I learned that another charge for $0 had been made to Walmart.com, several charges had been made to Petco.com, and a rather large charge had been made to an online auto parts store.  I told her that all of those charges were fraudulent, and that the $647.98 from Wasserstein Home was fraudulent, too.  She said that she would report those charges, close my account and send me a new card.

My next contact was with the Wasserstein Home customer service department.  Since they do not have a customer service number, and since their chat feature was Facebook messaging, which would make all of my correspondence visible to my park managers, I sent an email to the customer support specialist.  A woman named Veronica Concepcion (or a person who uses the handle Veronica Concepcion, or a bunch of people emailing under the collective name Veronica Concepcion) emailed me back.  Our correspondence is reproduced below in toto.  My emails are in bold; Wassertein’s are in italic:

Hi –

My credit card statement reflects a charge of $647.98 from you guys for a transaction that was made on 12/7, but that posted on 3/30.  Could you please tell me what it is for?

Thank you.

HI John,
 
Thanks for reaching out.
 
It appears that there was a purchase of the Dartwood All-in-One Multi Cooker, Food Processor and Smart Kitchen Machine (order#33340) placed on December 6, 2022.
 
We were, however, unable to fulfill your order due to a fraud alert and your credit card has not been charged. We take security very seriously, and a major part of that is ensuring that orders are placed by the legitimate cardholder. This keeps our customers, other credit card holders and Wasserstein safe. Unfortunately, we were unable to verify this purchase, and it was declined out of caution. 
 
We hope you find this information helpful. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact our customer service team and we will be happy to assist you!
 
Regards,
Veronica

Well, $647.98 was posted by you guys to my card on 3/30.  I never placed the order for that item, and I never received that item.  Please reverse this charge.

Thank you.

I’m so sorry John, can you possibly send us a receipt  or statement of account (please cover the running balance for security reasons)  showing the $647.98  charge since the charge on December was the only one I was able to locate.
 
Regards,
Veronica 

Here you go.  See the charge for $647.98 that posted on 3/30.

The transaction is listed as having occurred on 12/7.  The card to which that charge was made was cancelled around that time because it had been used for fraudulent charges; this charge was apparently one of those fraudulent charges.

For some reason, the charge has found its way onto the card that was issued to replace the card to which fraudulent charges were made.  Since the charge was fraudulent and I never made the purchase or received the merchandise, I would appreciate it if you could reverse that charge.

Thank you.  Please let me know if you need anything more from me in this matter.

Thanks John, you would have to dispute the charge with your bank since we show the amount already being refunded:  December 7: $647.98 USD refund was deducted from your Dec 9 payout

Sorry – I do not see any evidence of it being deducted on my statements.

Also – if it was deducted, it was only deducted after it was already included once.  That means that the current charge creates a net charge of $647.98:

Dec 7: +$647.98

Dec. 9: -$647.98

March 30: +$647.98.

That means that you guys collected a net amount of $647.98 for an item that was fraudulently charged and never shipped.  Please reverse the charge.

Thank you.

I am currently verifying this with our internal team and will get back to you within no more than 24 to 48  hours with a response.
Please bear with us and thank you for your patience.
 
Regards,
Veronica

Thank you.  I will look for your response.

Hello John,
 
I just confirmed with our shipping team- this has been refunded. The error might be on your bank’s side so we suggest you get in touch with them to reconcile.
 
I’m sorry I wasn’t much of a help.
 
Regards,
Veronica 

We agreed that it was refunded during December in the last email.  However, it was charged AGAIN on March 30.  That second charge needs to be refunded. 

Is there a supervisor with a phone number who I can speak with?

Following up on this.  As I understand it, a charge was made in December.  That charge was refunded.

Another charge was made in March.  That charge has not been refunded.

The first charge was fraudulent.  The second was mistaken.  Please refund the second charge.

It would be easier to handle this if we could talk by telephone.  Is there a telephone number at which I can contact you or a supervisor?

Thank you.

Hello John,
 
I can only see one charge from us- that was on December.
 
The error might be on your bank’s side so we suggest you get in touch with them to reconcile.
 

Veronica –

I sent you a copy of the credit card statement.  It shows a charge made on March 30.  That came from my bank.  What more proof can you possibly need?

Is there a phone number at which I can call you or your supervisor?  This will be easier if we can speak on the phone.

Hello John,
 
I checked with our accountant.
 
We have checked all our payouts in the range period that this was charged, and I dont see us receiving an additional payout on Mar29-Apr4

Also saw both charge and refund from our payout section for the initial transactions in December.
 
I was advised to refer you back to your bank whilst showing that we have indeed process the refund on our end. Post date is determined by the bank/credit card provider. so its probably best for him to consult his bank.
 
Regards,
Veronica 

I have attached my statement again.  As you can see from the statement, I was charged $647.98 on March 30 by your company, Wasserstein Home, based in Faribault MN.  If your records do not reflect that, your records are faulty.

Please refund this charge.  I have, of course, spoken with the credit card company.  If we can not get this straightened out, I will alert the BBB and the CFPA.

Please let me know how we can speak over the phone.  This will be easier if we can speak live.

Thank you.

For the better part of a day, I thought that that was it.  I couldn’t state any more brute facts, and they couldn’t deny any more of same with a straight face.  If this were a sitcom, the writers would insert a deus ex machina like a pregnancy test or purchase of the mobile home park by a PE fund to get them out of it.  But this aint a sitcom.  It is the real world.  In the early afternoon my phone farted and I opened the following email, from Wasserstein Home:

Hello,

We’d love to hear what you think of our customer service. Please take a moment to answer one simple question by clicking either link below:

How would you rate the support you received?

Good, I’m satisfied

Bad, I’m unsatisfied

I clicked on the second comma splice.  Here is what I wrote in the comments section:

Are you serious?

I was charged twice for an item I did not buy.  The charge was refunded once.  Since there was no customer service phone number, I had to correspond by email.  The person or people on the other end of the emails kept insisting that the problem had been solved because one refund had been issued.  In a whats-on-first type of dialogue, they refused to admit the existence of the second charge despite my having provided a credit card statement showing the charge, and they refused to acknowledge my request for a telephone conversation.  Friends do not let friends shop at places with customer service departments like this. 

And that is my public service announcement.  If you have money to give away, give it to a charity that feeds Ukrainian widows and orphans or that works to find a solution to climate disruption.  Buy mortgage REIT stocks and reinvest the dividends.  Collateralize short puts or buy covered calls on stocks with high IV.  Pay college tuition.  Buy a mobile home park in a red state.  Go on a ten-day drunk in Vegas.  Burn it and offer it to the ancestors.  But don’t shop at Wasserstein Home.  There are so many better ways to waste your hard-earned cash.