Ouch, I feel your pain on that it's always frustrating when your hard earned is taken away by unscrupulous people. It's a tough world out there though, running a business myself I've lost and learned over many years from card fraud - the most frustrating part of that being it can be months after you have taken the order and shipped the goods the card company take back the payment - at which point you can't do anything but suck the loss up and learn from the mistake.

One bright side though, a few years back I caught a card fraud scammer out - although he got the payment for an expensive piece of equipment through by providing the card holders address I was suspicious enough to land mail a letter through to the card holder address before shipping anything. A nice lady rang up a few days later to say it was her Husbands card, he had been working in America for a month and would have no need for a commercial espresso coffee machine. She blocked his card and I informed the local police, while keeping up the pretence with the "buyer" I was shipping his machine. In the end the Police did not do much, but the idiot doing the fraud spent 3 days outside the delivery address flat in a van waiting to intercept the equipment delivery that would never happen. It was difficult every time he rang to keep a straight face while saying - "it's on the way, but the van is caught in traffic", then "The van had a puncture they can't do it until tomorrow now".

Fortunately there are more good people in the world then bad, and that can brighten up even the darkest of days.

#thealliance