Take your time and research your purchase first; it could save you thousands of dollars! Simple precautions apply to all Internet transactions and, as always, common sense will help keep you safe:
- If a deal seems to be too good to be true, it is.
- If you don't know the buyer/seller, investigate him or her thoroughly.
- Don't be influenced by an extreme sense of urgency by the other party.
- Sandhills Global publications will not call or email requesting sensitive or proprietary information such as passwords, usernames, etc. Any calls or emails regarding your account will come directly from your advertising representative and not from a general ‘department’ of any sort. If you have doubts, always call your advertising representative to confirm.
- Sandhills Global publications offer paid advertising. We do not offer warranty or guarantee services.
- Sandhills Global is affiliated with FR8Star, a Sandhills Global company that provides a specialized freight shipping and transport load matching/load board platform that connects shippers of heavy equipment and other specialized loads with freight carriers, brokers, and transport companies through a load bidding process.
- Sandhills Global is affiliated with Currency, which offers secure solutions that facilitate financing for large expenditures such as heavy machinery.
- Our corporate Web sites can be reached by using the following address: www.sandhills.com. Alternate addresses may be fraudulent.
- A scammer will often try to pressure you into making a quick decision or ask you to pay up front or to forward payment to a third party. All of these are warning signs that should not be ignored.
There are dozens of scams and thousands of scammers out there. For more info about internet scams in general, see www.fraud.org/scams. At Sandhills Global, our security team sees such scam attempts as the following:
- Phishing Email: An email is sent to you as a “lure” to get you to click on a dangerous link, perhaps one that unloads dangerous software or takes you to a site that will attempt to steal sensitive information such as your password. How to fight back: Always be cautious about the links you see in emails. Here’s a trick: hover the mouse pointer over the link and you can usually see the URL it links to; if the link is different than the one printed in the email, that’s a danger signal. If you suspect you’ve received a phishing email through one of our websites, please contact your Sandhills sales representative immediately.
- Scam Phone Call: Someone calls you and says, for instance, that he has a buyer for an item you have listed on one of our sites, and for a fee he can arrange a sale. Or the caller may offer to sell equipment at a greatly reduced rate. Often, you’re pressured to send money up front—this is a sure sign of a scam.
- The Overpayment Scheme: The buying company will send the seller a certain amount over the agreed-upon selling price, requesting that the seller then send the overage amount to a shipping agent. Victims of this scam have paid the “shipping agent” before the check from the buyer clears. Then they find that the buyer’s check does not clear, and they are out whatever amount they have sent to the phony shipping agent.
- Explore your payment options: If you feel uncomfortable sending money to an unfamiliar person(s) we strongly recommend the use of an escrow service.
On the internet, you’re often dealing with people you haven’t met and have no reason to trust. That’s why our advertising representatives work hard to establish an ongoing one-on-one relationship with every customer. It’s about building trust. If you have questions, concerns, or problems of any sort, please call, or email your representative—he or she can tell you whether someone contacting you has any connection with Sandhills.