On: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 11:01:15 EDT, Brian Donaldson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> A week or so ago I received a personal check from a woman in Ohio.
> The amount was rather significant, almost $4,000. The check was
> made payable to me and even had my correct address info on it.
>
> I have no idea who this woman is or even how she got a hold of my
> address. Strange women sending me money in the mail? Sounded like a
> dream come true! :-)
>
> I went to a bank (not a bank I usually shop at), opened up a new
> account and deposited this check into it. By the time I had returned
> home I had an email from some joker in RUSSIA asking me to send
> them these funds by Western Union to them in their country (minus
> an 8% commission.)
>
> I immediately went back to the bank, closed that account I had just
> opened and retrieved the check which I passed onto the FBI in my
> home town.
>
> I then replied to this joker's email informing him I was aware of
> his phony scam, had no intentions of sending him anything via
> Western Union and that
> I
> had passed the check onto the FBI. Since then, I have heard nothing
> from him.
>
> According to this latest scam, these people have U.S checks, U.S
> money orders etc., but cannot cash them in their own country so
> they are looking for folks in the USA to cash these checks and
> money orders for them, and then transfer the funds to them in their
> own country. Yeah, right.
>
> This latest scam really stinks of a money laundering scam to me. Or
> maybe I am just overly suspicious........
>
No, it is simple theft using a technique that depends upon a little publicized
banking regulation which allows a bank to recover any funds that prove to have
originated in a fraudulent manner without any restriction as to time. In
short, if you had sent this money off to your Slavic correspondents, then
within a few days the original check would have proved fraudulent and you
would have been on the hook for the full amount. So long as the funds
remained in the account then you of course would suffer no actual loss, but as
soon as you removed them then you would have been liable for the full amount
as restitution to the bank.
There are numerous variations of this scheme. One popular one involves the
placing of large pre-paid orders with North American suppliers by overseas
firms. The order is paid for via a bank-to-bank wire transfer or some other
reputable form of exchange between financial institutions. A short time later
the purchaser reduces the size of the order somewhat and requests a refund.
The refund is remitted using the same technique as the original payment,
usually via a bank-to-bank wire transfer. However, a few weeks later the
entire amount of the original funds transfer is repudiated by the vendor's
bank because the corresponding bank has reported that the funds used for the
initial transfer were themselves fraudulently obtained, often by depositing a
forged letter of credit or other security. The North American vendor now
discovers to their dismay that the funds used to pay for the order, which
probably has already been shipped overseas, are now removed from their account
and they are out the value of the goods shipped and the cost of transport and
the amount of the refund already remitted.
The last part is particularly galling because the banks refuse to consider
that source of the refund was itself fraudulent. Their position is that your
account is a genuine source of funds and so your refund of non-existence money
is a legitimate transaction.
The moral: Only deal in financial matters with people you know and trust or
whose integrity is vouched for by correspondents you know and trust.
--
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James B. Byrne Harte & Lyne Limited
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