By Kimberly Brumble, Dillon County Sheriff’s Office
Many people are well aware of receiving letters in the mail or emails that say you have won a lottery. We receive many calls and inquiries about fraudulent check cashing scams. These scams have been going on for many years and there still are many citizens who are not aware of this and who are being conned by these schemes. These are occurring in several forms including foreign lottery scams, check overpayment scams, Internet auction scams, and secret shopper scams.
The biggest problems we have going on right now are the foreign lottery scams. You receive a letter or email saying you won a lottery. There is a cashier’s check enclosed to cover taxes and fees. They tell you all you have to do to get your winnings is deposit the check and wire the money to the sender to pay fees. You are guaranteed that when they get your payment, you’ll get your prize. Some letters are even saying they are from the FBI and you must pay them money.
There is a catch: this is a scam!! The check you deposit will turn out to be no good, even though it appears to be a legitimate cashier’s check. This is a trick to get you to wire them money. If you were to deposit the check and wire the money, your bank would soon learn the check is fake. You will be out of the money because the money you wired can’t be retrieved, and you are responsible for the checks you deposit, even though you don’t know they are fake. Just because you can withdraw the money doesn’t mean the check is good. It can take weeks for the forgery to be discovered and the check to bounce. You will be responsible for the money.
The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s largest consumer protection agency, warns that counterfeit check scams are on the rise. Some fake checks look so real that bank tellers are fooled. The scammers use high quality printers and scanners to make the checks look real with authentic looking watermarks. They may even be printed with names and addresses of legitimate financial institutions. And even though the bank and account and routing numbers listed may be real, the check can still be a fake. The fakes come in many forms, from cashier’s checks and money orders to corporate and personal checks.
Please protect yourself by throwing away any offer that asks you to pay for a prize or gift.
Know who you are dealing with and NEVER wire money to strangers. If you think you have been targeted by a counterfeit check scam, please report it to one of the following: Federal Trade Commission at 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357) or visit www.ftc.gov on the internet; The US Postal Inspection Service at www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect or call your local post office; or State Attorney General’s Office at www.scattorneygeneral.org or (803) 734-3970.