Please note for "purchase on account" and "direct debit"

Purchase on account and direct debit – the risk is growing all the time!

Our customers have known us for years – or rather, they know me and my staff, who sometimes end up on the helpline too.

You can trust us; we’ll do everything we can, and if it makes our customers happy, we won’t shy away from a sale where we end up losing 2 euros – for example, if parcels are lost due to third-party negligence, but the customer is urgently awaiting a purchase they’ve already paid for.
So pretty much the opposite of most big online shops: customers come first and profit expectations last – not the other way round!

That’s why it annoys us all the more when our trust is abused.

For example, when someone orders an expensive product that’s normally only bought by people who are elderly, frequently off sick and on a low income.
Then they send a friendly email saying it’s not that urgent – only to turn out, a week later, to be an anonymous fraudster: the goods are gone, and so is the money...

This fits with the trend: online retail has skyrocketed during the Covid year, as has the number of online fraudsters – we are now facing an unprecedented wave of cybercrime!
Even we, as a small shop that used to go unnoticed by such people!

The high quality we’ve maintained for years has now paid off for us too; our shop is doing very well and we no longer have to accept every purchase request.

I have therefore decided that we must monitor the ‘purchase on account’ and direct debit payment methods more rigorously.
I was hesitant at first, as our reputation with customers – including new ones – is very important to me, but with every day that brings a new attempt at fraud, I’ve become more convinced.

The risk with purchase on account?

It’s obvious. The customer makes a purchase, the parcel is dispatched, and after three weeks we realise the money hasn’t arrived – in 90 per cent of cases, that’s the end of it!

What’s the risk with direct debit?

The customer can get their money back up to 8 weeks after receiving the goods, even if there’s absolutely no reason to do so, even if we dispute it with the bank or Stripe!

What’s the best way to combat online fraudsters?

We’re now relying much more heavily on credit checks.

Everyone knows Schufa, but they’re very expensive. Online shops prefer to use ConCheck, which is cheaper – a credit check there costs us less than one euro.
Incidentally, everyone does this, even shops that don’t mention it...

As a shop owner, you then receive a document with a school-style mark. And some personal details.
Grades from 1.1 to 2.9 might sometimes be awarded unfairly, for example because a trustworthy citizen lives in the ‘wrong’ part of Cologne. Up to a score of 2.9, it’s all about ‘statistical probability’, not, for example, unpaid bills in the past.
From a school mark of 3.0 onwards, there is always at least one negative factor, e.g. a previous debt collection procedure due to an unpaid bill.

Our experience so far: 95 per cent of sales with a rating above 3 go wrong; from a school grade of 2.6 onwards, you have to wait significantly longer for payment. It’s striking – even though this is supposed to be just ‘statistics’ – that there are almost never any problems below 2.5.

Furthermore, ConCheck might indicate that the credit rating is fine and the address is well known, but the name itself is unknown. We used not to think anything of it. Now, following a criminal case involving identity theft and a loss of 500 euros, we know that these could be fraudsters ordering parcels to genuine, valid addresses but in the names of non-existent people...

So from now on, it will be more difficult to obtain a dispatch confirmation from us if you’re a non-regular customer and choose to pay by invoice or direct debit.

The new rules:

• We will only accept purchases on account for customerswith a credit rating of 2.5 or below. Above this rating, the customer will receive an invoice from us, which they can pay either by prepayment or via PayPal (link provided in the invoice).
• Purchase on account is only possible if you provide a telephone number and date of birth.
• The billing and delivery addresses must be identical. Purchase on account and delivery to another person, to another country or to another town are mutually exclusive.
• In the credit check, the name must be marked as “known”; delivery on account to unverified names is excluded, even with a credit rating of 1.0.
• Purchases on account via a “guest account” are not permitted and may result in your order being rejected. Honest customers have nothing to hide. Please create a customer account.

We may also object to direct debit purchases that appear suspicious.
‘Suspicious’ means a new customer with an unusual mix of goods, high purchase amounts, or issues in the credit check.
In such cases, it may initially appear in our Stripe account as though everything has gone smoothly. However, experience shows that this is not necessarily the case.
At the very latest, this becomes apparent when, after 4 weeks, the status shows ‘Customer has disputed the payment’ and, after 5 weeks, ‘Case lost’.
So, when in doubt, the same rules apply as above.

With us, every customer, without exception, has the opportunity to shop honestly. So no one is excluded!

Technically, we could set everything up so that the customer doesn’t notice any of this at all. In other words, the shop itself would check for the relevant criteria and notify the customer in a second, without either us or the customers even realising it.

However, whilst our shop is state-of-the-art, it is unfortunately also highly complex, and finding the correct settings is very difficult.
Tinkering with the background settings has often led to errors, resulting, for example, in no customers being able to place orders at all. I do all this myself, because if we were to employ an expensive IT department, we’d never be able to offer our unrivalled low prices!
We therefore unfortunately have to do this manually, which is time-consuming, for each individual customer, sometimes receiving feedback hours after the purchase.
It will certainly take until the end of 2022 before everything runs fully automatically in milliseconds.

We hope you’ll bear with us.
And we’re looking forward to the time ahead, when we can once again enjoy our daily interactions – whether by email or phone – with the friendliest customers in the world, without having to waste a single thought on fraudsters!

Stay well, Mario Müller

Update 16 November 2021:

I received a call this morning from the Worms Criminal Investigation Department. The perpetrators behind the fraud case have been identified! They’ve also identified a group of 60 suspects!
So this must be a ring involved in hundreds of fraudulent purchases.
That takes the weight off my mind – I no longer feel guilty about having to bother my customers every now and then.
Of course, it’s a nuisance when you can’t have a large parcel collected by a neighbour, but instead have to turn up at DHL after work with your ID card.

But something like this can also be extremely helpful for our customers in an emergency!

Example:
A naturopath orders a large quantity of dietary supplements for his clients. A criminal realises that he has many customers who also purchase high-priced products.
So, at the typical DHL delivery time, they send a front man to the door, saying, “Yes, hello, I’m Mr H.P., you can hand it over to me straight away” or “My neighbour has already let me know; he had to pop out for an appointment, so I’ll take it!”
The delivery driver will normally do this without any fuss, i.e. without an identity check. Parcel gone, we’re not liable – a real headache!
For mid-priced parcels, we might occasionally opt for “personal handover” for cost reasons; it only costs us 0.99 euros instead of 2.99 euros. But in that case, a forged authorisation from the recipient would also suffice for the delivery driver ; IdentCheck is secure – for both parties!