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About Us

I work for a company and our company sells very popular electronic products to consumers in the automotive industry.

Our Problem

We have one particular customer that has ordered one of our products legitemately and about 30 other orders of the same product with stolen credit cards. While we have tracked down this customer and have all of his contact information and support details; no law enforcement agency has cooperated with us in terms of opening a case and helping us. We've tried local, FBI, Treasury, Secret Service. We are a very small business with very few employees and as a result are struggling.

The Damages

result to $10,000+ in products and $3000 in mitigation and recovery.

Advise Us

Is it possible to hire a lawyer to help us and what kind of lawyer would we seek out?

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  • Clarify "The Damages." You shipped the products even though the CCs were fraudulent?
    – BlueDogRanch
    Dec 15, 2017 at 2:33
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    The credit cards were found to be fraudulent after the banks had filed a chargeback against the credit card company that processes our payments. The damages are $4000 in delivered product and $6,000 in products that were not shipped due to a fast response from the card owners credit card company.
    – Nucleon
    Dec 15, 2017 at 2:34
  • And you have the full name and address of this person?
    – BlueDogRanch
    Dec 15, 2017 at 2:35
  • @BlueDogRanch, full name, address, phone number, emails, IP's.
    – Nucleon
    Dec 15, 2017 at 2:36
  • Have you called the county attorney for the person's county of residence and explained the criminal activity?
    – BlueDogRanch
    Dec 15, 2017 at 2:38

2 Answers 2

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user6726's answer about civil action is good, as you appear to have lots of evidence that document-based in terms of bank records, etc. And media shaming would work; but you could be sued in retaliation, even if you're right.

But try calling a prosecutor - such as a county attorney - rather than an arm of law enforcement. The police are always overworked and can be reluctant to try and put a case together for the local prosecutor. Contacting a county attorney is free and doesn't require you to get a lawyer, and it can be a surprisingly effective tactic against a criminal.

A phone call or a detailed letter to the county attorney for the person's county of residence that explains the criminal activity may be the key to getting some movement in the situation. You have lots of hard evidence to hand the attorney about an individual who is committing fraud, and that evidence may make simply make the case for the attorney, as it is documented evidence they can immediately verify and use, either at the county level, or be passed to the district (state) prosecutor.

A loss of $4000 is significant, and may be a felony in that state. But the "$6,000 in products that were not shipped" is intent on the criminals' part and is not a loss to you.

If it is a county with a large population, the attorney will have many assistants who may have time to pursue the case. An attorney for a small county may be looking for an easy case.

And who knows? The attorney's office may already know the person - if it's a county with a small population, or if that person already has a criminal history (which you could research yourself in that county's records) - and that makes the case even easier for the attorney.

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There is nothing, other than media shaming, that you can do about law enforcement not pursuing criminal charges against the person: prosecution is discretionary. That won't help you as far as damages go (you don't get money back if he's imprisoned). You need to sue the individual (presumably for fraud), so find a civil ligitation lawyer.

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