Allphase Business Supplies, Inc. All Phase Business Supplies, Inc. Allphase Business Phone Scam for Sale of Thermal Paper Compton California

Today, I received a call at my store in Michigan about our thermal printer. The lady on the phone, Shelly Lynn, said that she was calling about a manufacturer's update about thermal printer damage. She asked me for the model number of our printer and then told me that there was a manufacturer reissue of the thermal paper that we use and that we needed to rotate it in order to not damage our printer. She said that usually we paid $14.99 per roll (PER ROLL!!), but that there was an increase in the cost. I have been store manager of my location for about six months, but have worked for this store for 13 years. I thought that perhaps we had done business with this company in the past -- whatever, no big deal.

So someone contacts me about ten minutes after this phone call with an "order I placed ready to be shipped out" for 18 rolls of thermal paper at $14.99 per roll (ahh! I still can't believe the price!) and that my total is supposed to be $269.10. I'm like, "Okay..." and then he says it's going to be shipped. Feeling like a complete idiot, I search Staples.com and Officemax.com to see what we actually pay for thermal paper and I call back Allphase using the EXACT same number they called me from to confirm the "order we placed". I get another girl who says she can't find our order in her system and starts questioning me "Well, did you order the paper?", to which I reply "I don't need any thermal paper. I am not sure what just happened. I was first called about my receipt printer having some kind of manufacturer update, then I'm ordering receipt paper." I told her that I didn't want it and that I wanted to cancel it. She said she'd find it and cancel it for me, but didn't sound too convincing. I asked if I could stay on the line and wait for a confirmation of the cancellation and she said "Oh, well, I'll find it and cancel it for you." I told her that I just wanted to make sure that it doesn't ship because if it does, I'll refuse it.

Then I google the company and find all of these awful complaints about their scammy business practices. Tricky, tricky... First -- we've never done business with this company before, but they made it sound like we were customers already. Second -- they used some made-up story about our thermal printer suffering damage to try and trick me into ordering reeeeeally expensive paper. I may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but I can usually sense when I'm being duped. These people had me up to the point where I almost let the order go through. Never again.