You’ve heard the saying: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. In this case it was regrettably much too good to be true. It came back to bite someone in the ass and it bit quite hard. Let me explain.
I had a member come in today to talk to me about their account which was overdrawn by quite a bit. They were curious if there was anyway to file a dispute on a returned check. Unfortunately when a person deposits a check into their account they take full responsibility for it and in this case it hurt when it came back unpayable – it hurt bad. I don’t know the full story but I’m guessing that my theorizing is pretty close to what happened.
What Happened?
My members were probably looking for a way to make some easy money online. They might have heard about these secret shopper jobs where you get paid to spend another person’s money and then evaluate the service/products that they purchase and receive. They probably spent some time on the web searching for a way to do exactly this. They probably came across a website that looked legit and promised an easy job and easy money. Naturally they signed up for it and pretty soon they got a “cashier’s check” in the mail with some pretty simple instructions. Never mind the fact that the letter that came with the check has ridiculous spelling and grammatical errors. Or the fact that the company was requesting that my members wire back to one of their “agents” 81% of the amount of the check. Apparently this wasn’t enough of a warning.
Out $2,500 Dollars
What happened next? Well after my members followed the instructions on the letter and deposited the check into their account they went ahead and sent a MoneyGram wire to the “field agent” as part of their secret shopper test. Their assignment was to evaluate the MoneyGram service. Naturally this would require a wire transfer in excess of 80% of the amount of the check. Well shortly after the check was deposited and the money was wired the check was returned. They checked their account balance one day and saw that their account was overdrawn in excess of $2,000 dollars. Well there’s nothing I could do for them. They fell for it, I hate to say. We’re not going to take the loss, so naturally we pass it on to them since they deposited the check in the first place. I feel bad for them, but I can’t believe that they fell for it. The moral of the story? Don’t trust anyone, especially when it sounds much too good.
I’m going to be attaching a pdf of the document. You can find it at the bottom of this post, with a link called “fraud-letter.” Check it out. Read it. Memorize it. Don’t ever fall for it. If it sounds too good to be true (and repeat after me) it probably is.