Frrrrawd. As in: You big FRAUD!

Sad but true, small single owner buinesses suffer their share of Fraud.

We have recently joined a 1stdibs type site and of course the higher the online visibility, the more likely you'll be subjected to a variety of scam emails and credit card requests using stolen credit card numbers.
Yesterday while I was out on a magazine photo-shoot I get an email. One sentence "I want to purchase thing X call 1234564567 "
Before I can answer I get another email from the same person "my boss wants it"
I emailed back explaining I was unable to return a call at the time but I would be happy to answer questions via emails asap. I get a third email. "he'll give you (60% of your asking price) right now"
Riiiiiight.
So I send an email stating that we don't take offers and our price was quite fair already.
"He says ok, how do we pay?"

Hmmm. Mega loser has his assistant call and offer 40% less and immediately agrees to full price all without actually picking up the phone himself. We send an invoice, and I send an email asking for confirmation of business name, an acknowledgement of noted ding to the item and that item ships without glass, and a business telephone.
I get back an address. Which I already know is a false address. No business name, no confirmation of noted exceptions, no business telephone.

Red flags all over the place. Fortunately we use a service online that auto flags accounts that seem unusual and block charges for questionable transactions. This way we can lessen our chances of fraudulent charge backs. If a customer has a number of chargebacks on their creditcards, they end up on a global blacklist and will be blocked from unusual(not local) purchases.

Fraudulent online charge backs are primarily a Paypal problem.
Someone buys an item using paypal, and then has 45 days to file a charge back for a variety of reasons. With the economy being the way it is, online fraud has gone through the roof!

The unfortunate thing is very small single owner businesses can't afford fraud. Larger companies figure fraud into their prices and everyone pays for it. Small companies can't do that.

We don't send items out on approval. Sometimes people will order an item with the idea that they will take it on approval and return it at no cost to them if they don't like it. That doesn't work. If I sell something for 300, plus 75 shipping, and the buyer decides to return the item and wants me to pay shipping forward and back, the transaction will cost me 150. So obviously I can't pay shipping.
This one seems to fail the reasoning meter with most people who like to take things on approval. I'll tell you now, there is no magic box at the post office that says "no charge". If the buyer doesn't pay shipping, the seller does. It's an EITHER/OR situation. There might be a write off at the end of the year, in the meantime I'm out of pocket. Small businesses can't function that way.