Nigerian counterfeit cashier's check scam - have recently become victims of this scam

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on December 15, 2002:

From:

RE: Nigerian counterfeit cashier's check scam - have recently become victims of this scam We have recently become victims to a Nigerian counterfeit cashier's check scam. It starts when people from overseas posing as potential buyers of large items for sale on the internet, such as cars, ask the seller of the item if they can have an associate of theirs in the United States mail them a cashier's check for the amount of the item plus transportation overseas in order to expedite the process. They ask that once the check has cleared the bank, the seller withdraw the amount that is for transportation, and wire it to the buyer so he can schedule the shipment of the item. When these cashier's checks are deposited into the accounts of the sellers and they ask their banks to verify for them when the check will be clear and good, so that they can safely remove the funds needed, they are not given accurate information by the banks. Some are told that the check will be good in 24 hours, and some are told that the check is guaranteed good, so they should have no worries about the using the funds.

Feeling safely assured the bank customer goes through with the transaction. Then, days later, when the checks are found to be counterfeit the banks are holding their customer responsible for the entire amount of the check, even though the bank had already assured them that the funds were good Since we have started our website and spreading the word about this scam just weeks ago we have found others that have also come in contact with this same scam. In just over a month the support group has grown to over 90 members from across the country.

Thank you,

Shawn and Jeff Mosch

There is strength in numbers. Scam Victims United

http://www.geocities.com/scamvictimsunited/

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I fell prey to this scam. I have lived all over the world, and dealt with foreigners who misspelled a few words; big deal. A check from dartmouth college, and a person who had no time to deal with "movers". The bigger problem is that our government knows about it and just calls us all stupid because we fell for it, when they could change banking regulations, and of course the meaning of the word "CLEARED". A notice should be posted at each teller window explaining the meaning of the word "cleared",and that the bank is really just making a loan to you until the check is found to be good. To boot,my local bank was supposed to call us to work out a plan to pay back $4100.00, instead when I deposited money I had a big negative balance; so much for customer service!

Comment On This

I fell victim to a scam of a somewhat differnt nature, but still involved Nigeria.

I met a man on Myspace that I befriended and I got scammed for over $6,000. It was the check scam. I was his "business associate". He had his "client" from the USA send me checks and I deposited them and then would keep 20% of the checks and send this man n Nigeria small amouts like $500, $1,000 or $700 at a time for weekly payments on some property he baught. He was a DIAMOND MINER. He lived in Fla. and even his "son" would instant message me often. We all 3 would chat in a room. I really fell for this guy bad! HE WAS VERY GOOD! He sent me gifts such as flowers, earrings, Valentine gifts, birthday gifts! He sent me money anytime I needed it to fix my car etc.

It took awhile for my bank to catch all the bad checks, and my over-draft protection covered it. But now I must pay back my credit card ODP. I reported all this to a INTERNET FRAUD PROTECTION SITE that is affiliated with the FBI.

I have a friend in Germany that told me there was recently a huge sting in NIGERIA and they arrested over 300 of the scammers! I hoe he was 1 of them. Terhe are thousands or maybe even millions of people scamming others all over the world. My Bank Mgr. said that CANADA is the 2nd largest country that has scammers run money through there!

I THINK IT IS ALL APPAULING!!