The Erik Scam

After years of having a near perfect customer service record, we came across something that is so strange that we had to write about it. I don't know how to convey how much effort we put into customer service, but it is written into our bylaws, number "2/ We provide the best possible customer service." It is one of the two major rules we follow. That is why this guys rantings are simply a scam. When we did everything possible to satisfy him, and he just kept coming at us with attacks, we tried to believe he was just a nut, but he is just a thief, who thinks the world owes him a living. I don't believe in promoting this sort of behavior for any reason, even if it costs us lost sales. This guy sounds like, a nice guy, but that is not what he is while he was working the scam. Anybody who would promote or even consider this guy as anything more than a scammer, we do not want you as a customer. ( It is now 2008 and we are expanding internationally even more. So, there are plenty of good, honest people still in this world.)

Just so you know a fellow named Erik Selberg from Seattle tried the credit card scam on us. It took us a while to understand that Erik Selberg is a clever thief and nothing more. At first I really thought he was insane, but he was working a scam on us. Crazy like a fox! This guy will do anything to win, with no conscience at all, except that when you as a merchant do not give into these games, you have to deal with this guys insanity for a while. The Spa Specialist inc. would not play the game, because we stand for ethics and we stand against these thieves. Read what our other customers say.

First we offered to replace Erik Selberg's spa with a new one free of charge and I was going to go to Seattle and install it myself. I do that when there is any real issues with one of our products. That was not what Erik Selberg wanted. He simply wanted to force us to give him a (at that time the year 2000) a $9800 product for $4600 dollars. This guy is an embarrassment to his family and to his country. If his father taught him to lie cheat and steal, then I guess he is his father's hero. These morally degraded people are becoming more and more in our country with the fact that many religious leaders are scam artists and give God a bad rap.

I went to a lawyer because I could not figure out how anybody could get away with that sort of thievery.

My lawyer said that this crime, difficult to prove, is taking place more and more on the Internet and catalog orders on high ticket items. It is in rampant use these days on the net, with people sharing ways to do the scam. My lawyer said that he knows of companies who have gone out of business from this. One was a motorcycle company. It is because the credit card companies issue a credit refund without a real investigation, it is strictly the word of the "customer" in most cases.

The scam artist will pick out a high ticket product that they really like. They order high ticked items that are expensive to ship and order it online with no signature or contract. (That was out first mistake. Trusting that Erik Selberg was what he said he was.) Many merchants try to stop this by recording the transactions, but that does not matter, it is what the credit card holder says to the credit card provider is what "counts". Once they have the merchandise, the merchant who is often in another state is in dire straights to stop the scam.

The scammer will , after the product arrives, find all sorts of things wrong with the product, embellish everything way out of proportion. Sabotage it if you have to, like Erik Selberg did, when he ruined the "hi-limit" sensor by shutting the valve on the heater.

The scam artist will contact their credit card company and report that they got "Damaged Merchandise"; "I didn't get what I ordered" or one of the other criteria for a refund. It does not matter the real condition of the product, but what the card holder claims (There is no way to refute these claims, if the spa is locked in his back yard as Erik did to stop our service tech from seeing it.). The credit card company will favor the purchaser, even if there was nothing wrong. That is what makes this crime hard to detect. Since a sociopath has no conscience they can do this sort of behavior. Personally, I find it repulsive to think that one human being can do this without feeling guilty or remorse or even worse they feel it is OK to harm others for their gain. Who taught this jerk this ethic?

The scam artist will contact the company they got the product from and start extorting from them. In this case, he really wanted the spa, because it is so nice, but he was not going to pay for it.

In this case Erik Selberg threatened that I would be sorry if I did not give into his demands. (He had been preparing his embellished web site all along and the email logs.) How many people do you know keep a daily log of their spa deal???? That is sick! I have sold thousands of spas and Erik Selberg is the only one. He thought that after his scam was published on the net that I would give in to the scam for fear of lost sales. Let me explain this to you. I hate lies and I have great disgust and no pity for liars. As soon as someone lies to me, I cut them out of my life, completely.

By the way, he asked me to be sure to send my email in both HTML and text, but he wanted text for sure. That should have been my clue. He was planning on keeping a log of email and specifically leaving out any of the phone conversations where I tried to reason with him. How many people do you know keep a journal of a spa purchase day by day? Do I repeat myself? Do I repeat myself? By the time I understood what this jerk was doing it was too late to get the authorities on him. "The devil is in the details."

In any email that the scam artist sends while doing this scam they will be careful to not publish anything that looks off theme. Always say the same things over and over. His theme was service and saying that he did not get what he ordered. The spa he got actually had an extra item installed, something that we should have charged more for and we were going to replace the spa for free if he was not satisfied.

On the phone to our service manager, Dave (also one of the owners of our business) Erik Selberg never asked for service at all while the spa was not heating for a couple of weeks. That way he could say that the spa was not working, but he made it so it would not work in order to work this scam. I called our service department from out of state (I was on a trip at the time) and told him to get a service tech out right away. The service tech was out the next day, but the gate was locked. So, we sent him out again the next day and found the sabotaged spa and reported back to me. He said that Erik Selberg was "very weird" (exact words) and was trying to get him (the service tech) to be against us. Erik Selberg told Dave that he wanted to; "diagnose the problem himself and learn how to fix it." That was why we didn't have a service technician out sooner. Erik Selberg has absolutely no electrical skills, a total computer "geek", but he certainly knows how to scam. These guys get together on the net and share ways to beat the system.

After Erik Selberg demanded the $2300 and then the $4600 discounts and told me on the phone that I better give into his demands, then we called a spa mover and picked up the spa. We gave Erik Selberg all his money back and we took a big loss on the spa and the shipping.

The main theme of the scam and one that should stand out like a sore thumb is that; in Erik Selberg's demands, taking a new spa was never the deal he was willing to take. As soon as the con artist agrees to take a replacement the credit card company stops the refund. "The devil is in the details." So, the con artists will never ever take a replacement product or in this case a new spa. Our deal follows exactly our return, replace and refund policy and we offered to repair the spa he had, so he could have a spa to use. Then when the new spa was built we were going to exchange it at no extra cost to Erik Selberg. We were not going to give him a spa at below our costs. NEVER.

The way the scam is supposed to work is sort of a credit card "leverage" deal. If the merchant has enough markup in the product they will often times give a discount in order to just be done with the difficult customer. Some will take a loss so that a "web site will not be dedicated to them". I have an ethical stance and I will not allow anyone to cheat me, no matter how smart they think they are. Any company giving in to this extortion is promoting it and are guilty of making it worse.

Since that spa costs us a fortune to have made, and we are a small company, I can't give any discount. As a matter of fact It was $400 under priced at the time, because I wanted to get out a few of these models to customers so they could rave about it.

The reality is that if the scam artists were to ever even show in public what the scam was, they could be sued for damages. The trick it to never break from the game and to con everybody around you, (including your girlfriend and your buddies so they are on your side). It takes a smart person to pull this off this scam and Erik Selberg is a Ph.D. in computer sciences. He knew that if he approved the replacement spa, he would lose his credit card leverage scheme and have to pay full price for the spa.

I hope that the US comes up with laws to stop this form of merchant fraud. It is the same as walking into a store and taking things off the shelf and getting off scott free. It is a crime that is not on the books yet. It is a sociopath dream this situation with credit cards.

Today we have a contract that is solid as a rock and our refund policies are clearly described in detail on our site. We are the examples of an ethical company with a tremendous concern for customer care. We have been members of the BBB and part of the BBB program of ethical merchants on the internet for many years. By the way, Erik Selberg never turned in a complaint to the BBB either. If you go to the BBB for any arbitration you are obligated to follow what they recommend. Since the BBB would fully agree that replacing Erik's spa with a brand new one, at no extra cost, is a great deal for any customer. Erik would never stand for that, because the scam is about getting money off on the spa. Thus, he never complained to the BBB about the spa. "The devil is in the details."

There are a few variations on this scam that I learned from my lawyer, but I don't want to give the fine details of how to not get caught. I left out a couple of ways to keep the product and get all your money back. Erik Selberg tried that as well, but we were too quick for him.

Here is what we offered him on the phone (of course.). We offered exactly what we offer anyone with real problems. We arranged to have his existing spa fixed so he could have a spa to use while we built him a new one.

We were going to replace the spa at no extra charge as soon as the new one was built. I was going to go to Seattle and deliver it myself.*

He really did not want a replacement he wanted to rip us off on the price. Read his extorting e-mail comments, after he sabotaged the spa. That is why he never once indicated that he wanted a replacement. That is a major part of how to work the scam. Never take a replacement, because the credit card company will stop the refund process. This will stop the scam right away. You will also notice that he does not sign his email with his name, that way it doesn't come up in a search, they way you found this one. "The devil is in the details."

I feel sorry for any merchant who has to deal with Erik Selberg or any of these sociopaths. I feel empathy for any merchant who has gone through this crime. If this guy Erik Selberg, would do this to merchants, you can imagine what this guy is like to deal with as an employee or in any business relationship. He is a predator who wants to win at all costs.

I hope this will alert Internet merchants about this and to take precautions against this scam.

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