Maplewood Imaging

Joel –

Victim Location 54601

Type of a scam Online Purchase

We received an email asking for a quote for 5 laptops

"Hello,

Please email us a price quote for 5 laptop units with the specification below:

Specifications:

O/S – Windows 7 Pro or 10 Pro

Processor – i7

Display screen – 14 or 15"

RAM – 16GB

Storage – 1TB SSD

Manufacturer – Dell, Lenovo or HP

Warranties – 1-3 years warranties (optional)

Delivery – 1-3 business days

Thanks!

John Martins

CEO/Partner

Maplewood Imaging

8530 Eagle Point Blvd, Suite 100

Lake Elmo, MN 55042

866-575-4110

[email protected]"

we provided a quote for $14,837.47 that would allow for the purchase and prep of the computers and their delivery. We are based in La Crosse WI and the company is in Lake Elmo which is only 2.5h away. In our quote, we said that we would only accept a check for payment since it is such a large amount and their only contact has been through email. They responded with this:

"Hi there,

Quote accepted. Find attached PO for this order and our only method of payment will be credit card.

Please advise if we can email you our payment details.

Thanks

JM"

(the Purchase Order is attached to this submission)

This sounded very strange, especially since we stated that we would only accept a check. We began looking into their website, and office location and found a number of inconsistencies. We called the office building and found out that this company does not hold office and is an online company only. The office building forewards all packages to a private address for a monthly fee. Upon looking up the website on whois it was registered January 16th, 2018, but their about us page states that they are the oldest and largest photography rental company. The images on their pages do not have links and searching for them on Google results in finding the original content provider.

We have responded:

"Dear Mr. Martins,

Unfortunately, we are unable to process this transaction via credit card due to the large order size. If you are willing to we would accept a cashiers check and would release the product once the check clears. I hope you understand that as a small business there are liabilities with such large orders that are placed without person to person contact and our insurance prevents us from accepting such large purchases via credit card.

Please let me know if there are any questions by giving me a call at 608-620-5515.

Sincerely,"

One of our staff members has a background in video and photography and has said that there is nothing about this website that fits with anything that is done in the industry or the professionalism of the website.