Consumer Safety & Awareness Part 21

Advance Fee Check Scams

In an advance fee-checking scheme, you receive money that you either did not expect or more than you expected. In all cases it is something that has to be cashed such as a check, money order, or traveler’s check. Usually it is made out to you, but occasionally it is already signed and you have to cosign it before it can be cashed. The sender wants you to keep part, perhaps a substantial part, of the check and send the rest to him or someone else.

The item is either counterfeit, stolen, or otherwise not usable. It is good enough for the initial deposit, so that you can get the money, but eventually turns out to be bad. You are then out the money you sent, and have to reimburse the bank. In addition, there is almost always bounced check fees as well as paperwork to explain what happened. Usually the banks ask the police to get a statement. On occasion, the person who cashed the check is jailed. As this scam is getting wider recognition, though, that has become a less likely possibility.

Here are a few examples from Internet sources:

A fake check scam visited a woman in Greeneville, TN when she posted her resume at Craigslist. Soon after, a job offer came knocking on her doors. The offer was from a company that described itself as a ‘work at home’ firm. It said she was selected and also had her first assignment ready. It sent her a check for $3,800.35 together with some instructions.

She was asked to cash the check at her local bank; 10% of the money was hers to keep. She was asked to forward the rest to a woman in Knoxville. She was specifically instructed to use the Western Union wire transfer service to send the money.
The young lady became suspicious and decided to dig deeper. She contacted a branch of the bank that seemed to have issued the check. Officials at the bank told her the account against which the check was issued was a fake and did not exist. This meant she would have been scammed of any money she would have sent after cashing the check.

Another woman was contacted by fraudsters after finding her name at Michigan Talent Bank, an online job site. She was offered a job for performing online work. Since it was an Internet based work, the company said that she would require a computer and an Internet connection at home. However, the company was ready to pay for the computer. It sent her five money orders of $500 each and asked her to cash them at any local bank. Then she was directed to send $2000 from this amount to a vendor who would send the computer to her house after receiving it. She was told that she could keep the remaining $500.

The lady would have been scammed of $2000 if she had sent the money as directed. Some alert employees at her local bank were able to determine immediately that the checks were forged.

There were a couple of things that the lady probably missed and which would have alerted her to the scam early. Firstly, the exercise of asking her to cash company checks and then send some money out of it seems questionable. Why was the company asking her to do it, when it was simpler to do so, on its own? Then, the fact that it was appointing her without conducting an interview should also raise doubts.

If you sell items using online classifieds, beware, this could happen to you too. Two separate incidents from Craven County should alert you to a particular risk involved while selling online by this means.

A woman was trying to sell items on Craigslist for $200 that were sold to a buyer who sent a check for $3,250. This was followed by an e-mail explaining that the check was a mistake as it was posted to the wrong person by the buyer’s accountant. The scammer asked her to accept the check as payment and send back the balance as a return check. Furthermore, he apologized for the trouble and even urged her to help herself to a tip of $50 more for all the hardships.

She did not fall for the scam. In fact she did not even bother depositing the check. She believed the check was made on a common computer printer. She promptly reported the matter to the Sheriff.

The owner of a horse farm in Illinois, placed an ad to sell one of her mares. She then received this curious e-mail (spelling is as in original): “My name is Keth. My client is in terested in buying it. I would like to know the last cost price so that I can proceed further on this, meanwhile my client pay with cashier cheque. Best regards, Mark”
The woman, who’d seen scams before, thought she might play along for fun. Here was her reply. “I’m confused. Is your name Keth or Mark? Anyway, my price on the mare is $1,500. Please let me know if you are interested.”

In no time she received this response. “The price is okay by me, and I want you to know that I have a client who is owing me $6000. I will instruct him to issue you a cheque on my behalf. As soon as the cheque gets to you, I want you to go and cash it immediately and send down my balance through Western Union to my shipping agent. My name is Mark.”

In an attempt to see where Mark was going with his proposal, she wrote him that she would accept only a money order. Mark, who obviously was not a spelling-bee winner, replied. “Thanks for you have instrunct most of my associate about the money order, but they told me they can only pay buy caher chek so don’t worry I will instruct him to issue you 100 percent cather cheque.”

Sure enough, she eventually received a cashier’s check in the amount of $6,000. But she wasn’t naive enough to cash it and forward the proceeds to Mark. First, she called the bank and verified that the check was a counterfeit. Then she sent Mark an e-mail telling him that she’d cashed the check and forwarded the proceeds per his instructions, supplying him with phony Western Union wire transfer information. After Mark made several unsuccessful attempts at collecting his nonexistent funds, she burst his bubble.

“Mark, the check you sent me is no good. You need to get ahold of your client and tell them to have money in the bank next time. I have spent a lot of time with you in this transaction and I would appreciate your still buying the horse.”

It came as no surprise that she never heard from Mark again. In reality Mark wasn’t interested in the horse at all. He simply was trying to get her to cash a phony cashier’s check and send him money.

Microsoft has these seven telltale signs of a scam:
1. You don't know the person who has sent you the message.
2. You are promised untold sums of money for little or no effort on your part.
3. You are asked to provide money up front for questionable activities, a processing fee, or to pay the cost of expediting the process.
4. You are asked to provide your bank account number or other personal financial information, even if the sender offers to deposit money into it.
5. The request contains a sense of urgency.
6. The sender repeatedly requests confidentiality.
7. The sender offers to send you photocopies of government certificates, banking information, or other "evidence" that their activity is legitimate (these are fake).