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How Check Scams Can Land You In Jail
Posted on Nov 8, 2006 by Tom Fragala
I've been droning on for years about check scams; work-at-home scams, 419/Nigerian scams, cashier's check fraud, and Internet/auction fraud. It may be the most common consumer fraud after identity theft. Read this story by David Lazarus in the SF Chronicle for a good example of what can happen. These scams are mushrooming because the web makes it super easy. The job boards, auction sites and classified web sites are being abused by organized crime, international fraud rings, and every day criminals. Craigslist, Careerbuilder, Monster and the others are TEEMING with scammers, many being run by organized crime rings outside the U.S.
And people's misconceptions around it are mind blowing. For example, people think that cashier's checks are as good as cash (NO), they think if a bank tells them a check is OK they are the clear to deposit it (NO), they think that banks have the responsbility to always verify that checks are not fraudulent (NO).
Comments
Tania on Nov 9, 2006
There is a scam going around. You receive a letter in the mail with a check for $1997 (or a different ammount) and the letter says that you have won $85000 and you need to go to the bank cash this check, and send the money via Money Gram or Western Union to Canada to cover Canadian taxes. They tell you that you need to put your relative's name in the recievers' slot and just give them the reference number. When you receive your winnings in 48 hours then the Canadian government will collect the money from Money Gram. Well the check is bad (even though it looks real, from "one of their sponsors" like an air line, etc. ) Of course you will never get your winnings and you get stuck with a "bill" from your bank for $2000.
Moore on Dec 18, 2006
London Gold Exchange is running check cashing scam sending invitations from careerbuilders.com stating they need 5 agents. watch this one. SCAMMERS
Michelle on Apr 6, 2007
I have experienced a new twist on cashier check fraud. I was contacted online by a man wanting to hire me to process checks for his company. Since I am unemployed I thought "why not". It sounded legit the way it was explained to me. Today I got the checks by DHL overnight delivery. There were cashiers checks drawn on four different banks. The total dollar figure was close to $850,000. Since none of the checks had a name on it (Pay to the order of) and this guy instructed me to type in names from a list he sent me, well a big old red flag went up. I know that banks type in the name when the checks are issued. So, I went online to investigate the routing numbers on these checks. Out of the four sets of checks, two of the routing numbers were totally false. The other two were in fact the routing numbers for those banks but it was clear by looking at the checks that they were bogus.
All of these checks are going into my shredder. I may not be able to stop the scammers but I can stop all of these checks from falling into the hands of unsuspecting victims.
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