SCAM ALERT: Check fraud from Canada

[The Night Owl]

Today, I received a letter in the mail telling me that I've won $250,000 from some kind of sweepstakes associated with several major retail chains. Yeah, right! LOL! With the letter is a check for $4,900. According to the letter, $3,900 from the check is to be used to cover taxes associated with my alleged winnings. The letter instructs me to call a number for further instructions before depositing the check.

The way the scam works... Basically, the scammer hopes that I'll deposit the check and then wire him or her money the bank credits me before the check bounces. A pretty crude scam but I'm guessing it works on a lot of people who don't know how checks work.

[bbinacan]

1. Thanks for the alert. n/t

[Duer 157099]

2. Yeah, but the real horrific part is that your bank will hold YOU accountable

if you try and deposit it (not YOU you. unless YOU actually deposit it, then you)

People have gotten into serious legal problems by depositing checks like this. Like arrested on the spot, that kind of trouble.

[The Night Owl]

3. It seems to me that in this electronic age banks could easily implement measures...

...to prevent most kinds of check fraud. Why don't they?

[Oregone]

4. First their geese bring down a plane, then their health care kills our actress, and now this?

[daleo]

5. Don't forget, demanding an apology from Fox news

And then there's the snow...

[B o d i]

6. Cheque overpayment scams are nothing new, and not invented in or confined to Canada

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/manukau-courier/2011947/Check-out-this-for-a-scam

(snip)

He’d asked $2000 for the car on the website only to get a cheque for £2500 – a whopping $6800 – from a Robert Hunter in the United Kingdom who then pushed Avi to "refund" the balance via Western Union.

Although Avi didn’t send any money, he did deposit the cheque and was stung $160 in bank fees when the UK bank dishonoured it as a fake.

Then just days after giving Robert Hunter the flick, Avi was amazed to get a second scam cheque in the mail – this time for £2300 for a $270 silver necklace he’d listed online for his partner.

"We can tell it’s the same people, definitely, but under a different name," Avi says, bemused by the scammers’ persistence.

Just like Robert Hunter, this scammer sent an initial email through the website expressing interest in buying the item and confirming the price.

"Then he sent another email saying he’d spoken to his ‘secretary’ and the cheque was being sent and for me to refund the balance through Western Union."

Once bitten Avi hasn’t deposited Tom Henshaw’s cheque purportedly drawn on the HSBC bank in Beckenham, Kent. And he won’t be "refunding" any of the more than $6000 overpayment from the cheque either.

Despite their identical scam methods and email language, Avi is certain Tom Henshaw isn’t the same scammer who posed as Robert Hunter.

"This one has a strong Arabic accent."

Even while Avi was fending off a barrage of calls from Tom Henshaw about his "refund", he got a third and identical scam email wanting to buy the necklace which was still listed online.

more

[The Night Owl]

7. I didn't mean to imply that the scam is new or confined to Canada.

In fact, I would be willing to bet that the people perpetrating the scam are not even Canadian.