WEEKLY EDIT ION April 26, 2017
Scams Affecting Portable Sanitation Business
By PSAI Executive Director Karleen Kos
Small businesses are often ripe pickings for scammers. While a
lot of fraudsters use the Internet to pull of f their mischief, some
scams use methods like the telephone and credit card
processing systems as well. Here are some of the most
popular scams outlined by American Express, the
Competition Bureau of Canada, and Big Scammers.com
currently being perpetrated towards small businesses.
Common Scams Against Small Businesses
Overpayment
The overpayment scam seems to be quite popular with tricksters targeting the portable restroom industry right now.
In this type of trickery, you will receive an advance payment via check or credit card that is higher than what you
normally charge. Sometimes the scammer will explain they are having some sort of challenge with making payment
to another supplier and ask you to send the "extra" money to that company. Sometimes they w ait for you to contact
them about the disparity. Then they will blame it on an accounting error or make up another flimsy excuse.
Either way, they will ask that you to just transfer the extra funds from your account to someone else's account.
What these con artists are doing is hoping that you will send them the extra money back before the credit card
is reported as fraudulent or noticing that their check is going to bounce.
To avoid this, implement a waiting period before any funds can be returned or passed along to another vendor.
Here is how a portable sanitation operator handled one of these scammers recently. Not surprisingly, he never
heard from them again after he sent his text explaining the waiting period.
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