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Fake Check Fraud and Scams
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Scams & Fraud
Fake Check Fraud and Scams
<font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><div>Learn what are the lastest list of scams and how you can prevent your identity from being stolen. Protect yourself from scams, whether they be phone scams, online scams or in-person. </div></font>
Fake Check Fraud and Scams US Postal Inspection Service. Truth or Consequences Video http://www.postalinspectorsvideo.com/USPIS/TruthOrConsequences.wmv US Postal Inpection Service. Fraud-P
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Cat:827966ee-6d39-4ef7-98a5-0157a43092f8Forum:b90a5c24-5453-42fa-b1f5-851b8a98e4aa
Cat:827966ee-6d39-4ef7-98a5-0157a43092f8Forum:b90a5c24-5453-42fa-b1f5-851b8a98e4aaDiscussion:b3ce3167-617e-4269-9349-40d73cc3fd5b
Forums » Money » Scams & Fraud » Fake Check Fraud and Scams
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Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 5, 2013 10:38 AM EST
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 5, 2013 1:30 PM EST
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
Thanks, Mimi, I really enjoy watching the videos. The US Postal Inspection Service has made some high quality videos and I also like the Fake Checks videos. I think that both websites are related to the US Postal Inspection Service. R |
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 5, 2013 5:05 PM EST
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
Check Fraud by Gangs http://www.occ.gov/static/publications/chckfrd/chckfrd.pdf Some gangs have become actively involved in check fraud. These gangs typically go after corporate accounts and have received a measure of notoriety because of their successes and failures. Example 1: Gangs have traveled throughout the country cashing counterfeit payroll checks obtained by gang members in targeted corporations or financial institutions. They use sophisticated counterfeiting techniques to capture the company’s logo and a company executive’s signature by scanning them and to prepare payroll checks using account information from a company check or a bank insider. They use the same information and techniques to prepare false identification for the people who will cash the checks. If insider information is not available, such gangs sometimes call the targeted company’s accounts receivable department, tell them that they have funds to wire into the company’s account and get its financial institution account number to accomplish the transfer. The deposit never materializes. Such gangs move into a city or town around payday and cash the checks at local institutions that have check cashing agreements with the targeted corporation. Example 2: A fictitious foreign company sends a letter to a person or U.S. company claiming to have a large quantity of money that must be transferred out of the foreign home country immediately. The foreign company asks the targeted person or company to help set up a financial institution account into which the money can be transferred. They offer a sizable commission, while asking for the target’s checking account information. The foreign company’s representative then uses the account information to withdraw money from the target’s checking account using financial institution drafts. Financial institutions should remember that, although the individual or U.S. company acted negligently, the financial institution may be liable for honoring the fraudulent drafts. Gang frauds can be successful when customers are careless and financial institutions fail to secure account information. To protect against such frauds, financial institutions should: • Warn customers about such schemes. • Verify new employees’ backgrounds. • Require proper identification from customers before cashing checks. • Be aware that gangs obtain account information from financial institution insiders, who process checks, copy payee checks, and use discarded receipts and/or statements. • Be aware that gangs will recruit account holders in good standing and request people to open accounts or fictitious accounts (to deposit checks). • Be aware that gangs also will obtain genuine identification issued by the state, in which they are negotiating the checks (be cognizant of the issuance date of the identification). 000. |
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 9, 2013 1:02 PM EST
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
A scam is successful when the scammer gets something for free from a victim and the scammer is able to get away and hide before being discovered. The scammer may only contribute up front to the victim something of low value or promises that will never be kept. Usually that "something for free" is a victim's money or some other negotiable item that is as good as cash. Consider your personal financial details to be negotiable items. Your personal information can be sold outright to other criminals or used right away to get to your savings or other financial accounts like debit card, credit card, checking, or even your investments. Why is this important in a discussion about scams and frauds becoming expired or outdated? There is always a time element in scams and frauds that the scammer is personally monitoring and counting on. This means that the scammer wants to obtain something from the victim at the earliest opportunity to enable a getaway before being discovered. Getting away is paramount to avoiding capture and arrest and prosecution. The scammer wants to live another day to carry out more scam approaches on more victims in the future, because there will be limits on what the scammer obtains from each victim. Sometimes those limits will be low cash balances or fast-approaching time limits on completing a transaction before it can be discovered as a scam and halted. Those limits may vary so much that the scammer feels compelled to continue with more scam approaches on more victims to keep up a lifestyle or meet personal financial obligations or even personal obligations to other criminals. One example is the Fake Check scam. The scammer issues a fake check to a victim and invites the victim to deposit it immediately and to send back to the scammer some or most of the money that comes available on the victim's account. This ruse can be a significant "overpayment" interpreted to be in the favor of the victim. In fact, the scammer will offer up this interpretation and even give detailed instructions to hammer the point home to the victim. The time element is extremely important here, and the scammer needs to get the victim quickly on their clock. For one, the financial institution is required by law to make funds available to its customers within a few days of check deposit, which can happen well before a fake check is discovered as a fraud. Discovery of fake checks can take two weeks or more if the check looks legitimate enough. The scammer understands this disconnect between funds availability and the detection of the fraud, and will make frequent contact with the victim to ensure that this time gap is exploited successfully. The scammer will make many casual contacts or perhaps make the contacts more urgent as the window of opportunity approaches its end. If the victim ultimately does nothing to withdraw any funds from the fake check, then the scammer misses out and loses. The victim is notified of the fake check by the financial instutution and the fraudulent funds will be taken back out of the account. If the victim complies with the scammer's instructions and urgent timetable, then the scammer will get to keep the transferred funds sent by the victim. The victim will be held responsibile for all funds withdrawn on the fake check deposit, even if the victim's account becomes wiped out or overdrawn. The lesson is that anyone should not accept any urgent financial timetables proposed by others. In our great financial system, checks are designed to be good for several days, weeks, or even months before expiring. Ideally, a concerned person (like you) will take unusual checks directly to a customer service supervisor at the financial insitution and ask for advice to clear it for deposit. The financial institution may be able to examine the instrument and detect a scam outright or offer advice for your personal circumstances. Share with the financial institution representatives all details about how you got the check so that the best advice will come to you. There will be plenty of time to get qualified advice and protection before finally depositing an instrument that bears up to scrutiny by experts. Both the financial institution and the account holder deserve this opportunity to protect themselves against scams and fraud, and it also denies funding to any scammers. Here is another example of how time is important to scammers. A scammer counts on the passing of time for people to become complacent about their financial well being. If a person was notified about a potential fraud, then the passage of time may erase or lower that concern. The person comes to feel that such scams may have been detected and eliminated due to past publicity about them. The person may feel reassured that no dumb scammer would try the same approach ever again. So, this passage of time means new opportunities for the scammer to revive the old approach that was so effective in the past. Old approaches can become new overnight. This is why dates of scams are not as important as the actual scam approaches over various mediums, such as telephone, text messaging, email, instant messaging, Internet web pages and chat rooms, or even the US Mail. Let us also remember the face-to-face approach as well, which can be very affective after an acquaintance blooms into friendship and professional networking with an in-depth understanding of likely victims. After all, so much emphasis is placed on sharing our personal details with strangers online, but less emphasis is placed on the same sharing with people we know in real life. Just how well do we really know them? 000. |
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 11, 2013 12:27 PM EDT
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
Canadian Lottery Scheme Uses Fake USPS Checks Postal Inspectors are alerting postal employees to a new scheme: letters are being mailed from Canada to U.S. residents announcing that the addressee has won a foreign lottery. A counterfeit Postal Service check is enclosed in each letter with instructions to wire a portion of the money outside the country after depositing the check. The Postal Inspection Service is aggressively investigating this scheme. If you believe you have received a check is related to a sweepstakes or lottery, do not accept the check. Call the Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455. 000. |
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 11, 2013 5:52 PM EDT
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
Phishing and Fake Check Fraud Threatening Email: CID Warns of Old Phishing Scam With New Twist US Army Criminal Investigation Command. CID Cyber Lookout. On Point for the Army http://www.cid.army.mil/documents/Lookout/Cyber_Lookout/Cyber Lookout_Threating Email Scam.pdf CID has no reports of the scammers acting on the threats and strongly recommends that Soldiers, civilians and family members who receive any suspicious and/or unsolicited emails should delete them without response. However, if someone receives a threat that they feel is legitimate or has any credibility what so ever, they should immediately contact law enforcement officials. The United States Secret Service (www.secretservice.gov) and the United States Postal Service (http://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/) are the primary U.S. law enforcement agencies dealing with these types of scams. U.S. citizens or residents who have not suffered a financial loss and want to report a scam may forward unsolicited emails to the USSS at 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov. People can also file complaints with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at www.ic3.gov/crimeschemes.aspx#item-13 U.S. citizens and residents who have suffered a financial loss should contact the nearest field office of the Secret Service by telephone. Victims are advised to continue reporting these scam e-mails to law enforcement agencies. 000. |
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 14, 2013 2:39 PM EDT
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
Check That Check ! By Colleen Tressler & Karen Hobbs June 22, 2012 - 1:33pm http://business.ftc.gov/blog/2012/06/check-check At the BCP Business Center, we offer tips on how to stay on the right side of the law. But we also do our best to spread the word about the latest frauds targeting businesses — and this one’s a piece of work. If your company accepts checks or online payments, you’ll want to be on the look-out for a scam that could leave you with a stack of worthless paper. Here’s what’s happening: In exchange for a fee and some personal information, fraudsters are giving people “instructions” on how to use bank account and routing numbers that don’t belong to them to pay their bills online, or print checks so they can make payments in person or by mail. In one scheme, scammers are using a variation on the “free money from the government” fraud. They tell people to use the routing number of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta — 0610-0014-6 — to make checks and electronic payments through the Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) Network. (No, we’re not offering a how-to here. The number is no longer valid.) If you get an ACH payment, check, cashier’s check, or certified check with that routing number, look into it. Checks with that number aren’t valid payment instruments. If you take one, you run the risk of not getting paid. So what should you do? Don’t accept the check — and notify the authorities immediately: your state Attorney General, the local office of the FBI, and your bank. What else can you do to protect your business from fake check rip-offs? Train your staff to watch for warning signs that a paper check might be counterfeit, like: no perforated edge on one side of the paper; the absence of security features, like a watermark; a routing number with fewer than nine digits; a bank address on the check that doesn’t match its real address; or a flimsy feeling to the paper. ... There is more! Read the entire article here: http://business.ftc.gov/blog/2012/06/check-check 000. |
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 14, 2013 9:42 PM EDT
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
FAKE CHECKS E-CARD VIDEO WEB PAGE Enjoy some music and a visual of a talk about fake check scams ! http://www.fakechecks.org/ecard-view.html R |
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Re: Fake Check Fraud and Scams
posted at March 16, 2013 5:05 AM EDT
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Posts: 330
First: March 1, 2013 Last: April 23, 2013 |
Check Fraud Schemes Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. http://www.occ.gov/static/publications/chckfrd/chckfrd.pdf Fraud schemes involving checks take many forms. Checks may be: Altered, either as the payee or the amount. Counterfeited. Forged, either as to signature or endorsements. Drawn on closed accounts. Used in a variety of schemes. Check fraud criminals may be financial institution insiders, independent operators, or organized gangs. The methods they use to further check fraud include: Getting customer information from financial institution insiders. Stealing financial institution statements and checks. Working with dishonest employees of merchants who accept payments by check. Rifling through trash for information about financial institution relationships. ... There is more! View the entire document here: http://www.occ.gov/static/publications/chckfrd/chckfrd.pdf 000. |
Forums » Money » Scams & Fraud » Fake Check Fraud and Scams
