My assistant brought in the mail from the office yesterday and in it was a real check in the amount of $1,990.00. Accompanying the check was a letter from Market Point that said I had entered an online contest and won. My name was drawn as the 3rd level winner on May 28, 2007.
Of course my assistant and I were skeptical, but I had recently entered an online contest, so the check could be legitimate. We called the phone number we were given in the letter and we were told:
“We don’t need your bank account information. Just take the $1,990.00 check to a check cashing center. When you get the cash, purchase a $1,890.00 money order and you can keep the remaining $100.00 for your time and trouble.
Next, send the $1,890.00 back to us (which is used to pay the taxes on the money you won.) A representative will contact you and make arrangements to send your winnings in the form of a cashier’s check for $54,810.00.”
My first thought was: “This sounds too good to be true.” But I examined the check front and back. It was a Wells Fargo checking account with a company name of CITY CONSTRUCTION located in California. There was no warning on the back of the check in 2-point type telling me that I would be obligated for anything if I cashed it. So my assistant and I decided to follow this through and find out if it really was a scam.
First, we called the phone number for Wells Fargo that was printed at the bottom of the check. (We later found out this was cell phone number that had been forwarded to a party in Nigeria.) A lady answered and said:
“This is Wells Fargo, may I assist you?”
We asked her to verify if there was enough money in the account to cash the check. (We did not give her the amount.) The lady asked my name then hesitated a few minutes (pretending to look up records.) In less than 30 seconds she came back to the phone and said:
“Yes, there is plenty of enough money in that account to cash any check.”
That seemed like an odd response to me. There is no bank account in the world that can cash “any” check. Even if you had one billion dollars in the bank and I tried to cash your two billion dollar check, your check would bounce.
Anyway, my assistant and I took the check down to our local Columbus, Ohio check cashing center. As soon as we walked in there was a notice on the window warning of these types of scams. When I reached the teller window and showed the check to the teller, he immediately recognized it as a scam.
But the check cashing teller was very nice. He took the time to explain the scam to us which I am able to convey to you through this article. I hope the explanation below helps to protect people from falling pray to this scam.
THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SCAM
Scams all have one common theme: They have some truth to them, but the truth is bent, reshaped and camouflaged as a pipe dream. People who fall prey to them do so because scams all appeal to the “greed” inside all of us.
The scam works like this: First of all, the check is real at the time you deposit it into your bank account. You are told to immediately purchase a $1,890.00 money order and send it back to the company in order to receive your $54,810.00.
For those people who send back the $1,890.00 money order, this is money the scam company keeps and they never call you back to collect your $54,810.00. Next, the check you deposited for $1,990.00 bounces when it hits the Wells Fargo bank. When your bank receives the returned check back, they will deduct the $1,990.00 + service fees from your account.
What happens if you no longer have the $1,990.00 in your bank account? Too bad. Now your bank will attempt to press “check fraud” charges against you. Although you may not go to jail, you will have to pay back the entire $1,990.00 to the bank plus go through a lot of red tape and explaining. You also even may be forced to file a Police Report in order to be taken seriously. In other words, you are left in a mess and the company received $1,890.00 in the form of a money order for doing nothing but scamming you.
Please, please, please pass along this information to others. It is sad that some people have the heart to commit fraud and hurt others like this. However, the best way to protect yourself is not to allow the emotion of greed to control your thoughts. Money is nothing compared to our peace, our relationships and our fellowship with God. So, do not allow money to control you so much that you become blinded to scams when they come along.
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http://www.713training.com/victoriaring/index.html