'Very stressful': Sask. tire shops caught up in alleged inter-provincial tire scam

Popular size semi-tractor trailer tires are shown Wednesday, March 18, 2015, at a truck tire shop in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

A tire shop owner in Saskatchewan is warning others after he says he was nearly defrauded in an alleged inter-provincial tire scam, almost losing several thousand dollars worth of product.

“Stressful, very stressful,” is how Roy Baird, the owner of Southwest Tire in Shaunavon, Sask., described the incident.

Baird told CTV News that his shop was contacted in late May for an order of a dozen tires. A common enough occurrence.

However, what happened next was anything but.

“All the sudden he’s getting someone to pick them up and ship them somewhere,” Baird said. “So I told my staff that when the shipping company comes in, check where they’re going and everything.”

Baird and his staff later learned that the tires were destined for a storage facility in Quebec.

With his product shipped off and already suspicious, Baird called the RCMP.

“I gave them all the information and they came back and said the actual person's bank is looking into a bunch of fraudulent activity on their card,” he said.

“Do not send anything, do not ship any products,” was the message Baird received from police.

Thankfully, his shop’s product, $15,000 worth of semi tires, was stopped before it reached its destination.

• Download the CTV News app to get breaking news alerts from across Saskatchewan sent to your device

According to Baird, the party ordering the tires had used stolen credit card information to make the purchase.

Following his own shop’s experience, Baird put the word out to others in the industry. In the process, he learned that he wasn’t the only one being affected.

“I put it out to my reps Arrow Tire, OK Tire, NBD, so everyone that deals tires in Saskatchewan,” he said.

“They were letting their customers know. Raymore phoned me, they got hit and they said another small town near them got hit for $30,000.”

In a response to CTV News, Saskatchewan RCMP confirmed that its detachments in Shaunavon and Punnichy received reports of potential fraud on May 30 and June 2 respectively.

The reports involved phone orders placed to local businesses.

“Investigation to date has determined that the two reports may be connected,” the statement read.

What worries Baird going forward is the ease of the scam, with it being very hard to tell scammers from actual customers before it’s too late.

“12 tires altogether. Semi with two spares that’s not uncommon. If it’s a tri-axle then that’s right on the bank. So I didn’t think anything of it,” Baird said, as recalled the fraudulent order.

“We have a lot of oilfield companies, we have a lot of trucking companies. I deal with all the provinces. So getting calls from an owner of a trucking company. You don't think anything of it, right? Just somebody paying for the tires for the truck to come in and get them put on.”

“But it's an eye-opener, that's for sure,” he added.

The experience as a whole has been tough for Baird and his operation.

“I just opened up here a couple of months ago too. I just bought this business. I only took possession of this April 1,” he said.

“So, I'm hurt quite badly with everything, from paying people and everything because everything got put on hold. As soon as I called it into my debit supplier they held all my funds.”

Baird believes a system should be in place to quickly warn owners and suppliers when fraud or scams are detected.

“No one's ever got together and made a website or something for tire shop owners … I'm still new to the ownership part. Even when I called my reps, they’ve been in the industry, they’re managers or owners of their own shops and they said like ‘Yeah, there's no real way to link anybody,’” he said.

“Like you don’t want anybody to go through this. This was stressful.”

Shaunavon and Punnichy RCMP are continuing to investigate and ask anyone with information about the incidents to contact their local police service or Crime Stoppers.