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The following text below has recently been circulated by NFU Mutual following an occurrence suffered by a member of Produced in Kent – Please be vigilant
Dear All,
There have been two instances in the last 24 hrs of large orders being placed with manufacturers/wholesalers of high quality produce. Typically this appears to be focussed on the type of producer who is going like a fiddlers elbow before Christmas and has not got the time to make checks.
In Kent we have a cheese maker who was set up: the payment was made to them over the telephone using a credit card. The buyer picked up the cheese in a black Renault Traffic van shortly after the order was placed. The next thing they knew was that the credit card company advised that the card used was stolen and that they are going to reclaim the amount of money from the merchant’s account.
The other victim we know about was a poultryman in Essex who has lost a quantity of turkeys.
The sums involved probably have wiped out any profit for the Christmas period for both of these producers which means that January and February are going to be pretty bleak for them.
There appears to be little that the merchant can do to protect themselves under such circumstances other than put a strict limit on the value of goods they sell when an unknown buyer is not physically present.
The common features of the thefts we know about were that the orders were unusually large, apparently destined for Farmers / Christmas markets in or around London, had to be very quickly completed by the merchant as the courier’s van was in the area at a specific time and that the goods were picked up by the buyer/courier. The only other common factor was that the card was registered in Australia.
Good luck. If any of you have any further information please pass it back so that we can spread the word.
