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California Toner Pirate IDC Servco, Charges Business $28K For 48 Cartridges
A $28,000 Mystery: Will the Real Toner Supplier Please Stand Up?
By DAVID SEGAL.
Gilbert Michaels Owner Of Mytel International and IDC Servco.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Mytel-International-Inc/Culver-City-California-90232/Mytel-IDC-Servco-Smith-Office-Supplies-Superior-Office-Products-Progressive-Office-324713Some consumer mysteries have solutions. Some of them do not. In this episode, an example of the latter:
Q. I work at a nonprofit in Manhattan. Toward the end of May, I received a bill from a company called IDC Servco for $7,000 worth of printer toner. Less than a month later I received another bill for $9,000 worth of the same product. Historically we have paid $1,000 to $2,000 a year for toner, though to a different company. As I later learned, we had never hired IDC Servco.
When I got the second bill, I called the company. A representative was very apologetic but basically made it seem that we had, in fact, ordered $16,000 in toner. This guy agreed to lower the price of the second shipment to $5,000. At the time I assumed we had a deal with this operation. So I wrote a check and thought that was that.
But the weirdness was just starting. Soon after, I got a call from a man at a company I’d never heard of. He said he worked with IDC Servco and would cut the cost of the second shipment to $3,419 if I paid his company via credit card and canceled the check for $5,000 to IDC Servco. I gave him our company’s credit card number, I canceled the $5,000 check to IDC Servco, and thought, once again, this is over.
Of course, the guy from IDC Servco called and he asked why the $5,000 check had been canceled. I really thought we were caught in the middle of a fight between two companies. A few weeks later, a man named Jim Snodgrass from IDC Servco called me and said the people from the other company were crooks and that I needed to report fraudulent activity on my card.
It turns out that we had been sending money to IDC Servco as far back as 2014. In all, we spent $28,694 and wound up with 48 cartridges. If you do the math, we paid about 10 times the price charged by Amazon.
We used 18 cartridges. I’d happily send back the remaining 30 for a refund. Can you try to arrange that deal?
A. Perhaps, dear reader, you are wondering why the Haggler described this case as a mystery. Here’s why: IDC Servco really should not exist. In late June, the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the United States Secret Service; the police in Huntington Beach, Calif.; and the Orange County district attorney’s office arrested 21 people linked to the company and charged them with operating a scheme to sell toner at inflated prices.
The toner swindle has been around for years, and IDC Servco sounds like a classic example. Inflated prices were just part of it. Prosecutors said IDC Servco would pose as the regular toner suppliers of its victims, which turned out to be a very effective sales strategy. From the time it began operating in 1988, IDC Servco netted about $126 million from 50,000 companies, the authorities said, mostly small businesses and charities.
So why is IDC Servco still, apparently, in the toner business? What connection does this company have with the one that prompted the arrests?
The Haggler called Jim Snodgrass — Ms. Polsky had his number — and he sounded like a perfectly reasonable guy. He offered to answer questions via email.
Unfortunately, neither the Haggler nor Ms. Polsky could fully make sense of Mr. Snodgrass’s account of this $28,694 misadventure. The clear part was that Mr. Snodgrass thought IDC Servco had done all that it could to help Ms. Polsky’s nonprofit organization. He also said that IDC Servco had begun winding down operations and ceased taking new orders in June.
In a follow-up, the Haggler asked about the June arrests. Though Mr. Snodgrass’s name was not on the list of those arrested, an obvious question presented itself: Why did IDC Servco appear to be in business as recently as September?
“I have referred this to upper management, who will refer it to the company’s attorneys,” he replied the next day. “That is the extent of the response that I can give you.”
No lawyer from the company has contacted the Haggler. When the Haggler suggested the swap requested by Ms. Polsky, Mr. Snodgrass did not reply.
The Haggler was still left wondering about the peculiar resilience of IDC Servco. So he contacted Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office for the Central District of California, in Los Angeles. In an email, Mr. Mrozek wrote that the operator of IDC Servco, Gil Michaels, was told to shut down the company as a condition of his release on bond this summer.
“We recently spoke with his attorneys, who informed us that the company was no longer doing business,” Mr. Mrozek continued. “We will look into this matter in an attempt to determine if the same company, perhaps operating under different operators, is still in business.”
So it’s a mystery to the authorities, too. If any answers emerge, rest assured, they will be shared right here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/your-money/a-28000-mystery-will-the-real-toner-supplier-please-stand-up.html?_r=0
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