AN ONLINE pet pharmacy has bitten back at credit card fraudsters by sniffing out the thieves itself and assisting a police sting, recovering thousands of pounds worth of products.

MedicAnimal, one of the fastest-growing online pet pharmacies on the world-wide-web, became suspicious when large orders were being made on an uncommon consumer item to be delivered to neighbours in Kent.

Ivan Retzignac, Co-founder of MedicAnimal, said: “We noticed several failed payment attempts were logged for the transactions in a 10-15 minute period so we contacted the relevant credit card companies to see if they were fraudulent. No alarm bells rang so, after asking for proof of identity, we processed the order.

“A few weeks later the same thing happened and the next day we were alerted that the orders were fraudulent. We contacted the courier service and the Metropolitan Police who, due to the evidence we had found, decided to conduct a sting operation.”

With one of the Metropolitan Police going undercover as the courier driver, once the credit card fraudsters identified themselves they were arrested immediately. Two men were taken into custody and a comprehensive search of their property ensued, recovering almost all of the products supplied to them by MedicAnimal.

Andrew Bucher MRCVS, Co-founder of MedicAnimal, said: “Due to the dogged determination of the MedicAnimal team along with the help of the Metropolitan Police, we managed to catch the credit card fraudsters red-handed.

“As an online company, we are dedicated to not only becoming victims of fraud ourselves, but also we want other companies and consumers on the web to not fall foul of fraudsters either. We are very pleased that our collaboration with the Police achieved such positive results.”

If you would like any further information on this story or if you would like to interview MedicAnimal please contact Kimberley Workman on 0191 261 9799, alternatively, email kimberley@guerilla.co.uk.

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