Scam Type
Vanity Award Scam
Business Name Used
The St. Augustine Award Program
Date Reported
Oct 31, 2022
Victim Postal Code
32084
Total Dollars Lost
0
Scam Description
I received an email stating my nonprofit was awarded the “Best of” in our category. They provided a detailed description of how they work and how we were chosen, as well as a picture of the award and a press release. The staff were responsive. The two supposed staff names were Angela Whall and James Anderson. They stated there was no membership fees for their program, only pay for the award plaque. There were two options, and I was taken to a website to select one. They also offered a digital image of the award to promote the business.
Once I ordered the plaque, I received a receipt that explained the Credit Card Charges:
“When you place an order, we contact your credit card’s issue bank to confirm that your credit card has a valid number, and has not been reported as lost or stolen. This is communicated via a full authorization amount of the total purchase. However, we do not actually proceed with the charge at that time.
This is simply a security measure we use to protect our customers. Occasionally, banks may hold multiple authorizations on a customer’s credit card. They also may hold authorizations for up to 7-10 business days. Please contact your bank if you wish to have these authorizations removed.
Your credit card will be charged once the product(s) have shipped.”
I received a valid UPS tracker #, which the plaque was being shipped through California.
As I was preparing to sharing this “great news” with local media, I looked through their website again more carefully and noticed some discrepancies – primarily the fact that they said it was not a nomination-based award, but rather through other tracking/assessing to determine it. However, the website offered an nomination form to nominate a business. I didn’t catch this initially – thinking it was odd but maybe it was for something else they did. So I decided to search scams and found this was a common scam. Our business had never been targeted before so I didn’t catch on till after I ordered the plaque. It was a well-developed scam.
Fortunately, I discovered this while the order was still in pending status with our bank, so I contacted the bank and immediately stopped the payment and canceled our bank card and info the scammers received. The UPS package is still in route, but I have notified UPS we are refusing to accept the package and it needs to be returned to sender.
