Winter 2010
Scams today are everywhere! Be aware, be knowledgeable, and be ready!
If a financial scam has not affected you personally, you can be fairly sure that one has affected a friend, neighbor, or loved one in the very recent past! That’s right, scams are out there and if we’re not cautious we’ll be taken in just like the thousands of others who fall prey each day. The old adage, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!” rings true today more than ever before. Some scams are portrayed as honest mistakes or “too good to say no scenarios.” Other scams use “begs” to garner personal, private information for misuse. They are presented under the guise of offers for help or protection. Here are a few examples:
1. A seller advertises a car for sale on e-Bay. The seller receives an offer for the car and a deal is struck. Soon the seller receives a check in the mail for a sum substantially more than the agreed upon selling price. The seller contacts the buyer and is told, “Oh, my mistake I must have been thinking of another deal. Just send me a cashier’s check for the difference along with the title and everything will be fine.” The challenge is that the buyer’s check is bogus, a fraud, a forgery, and by the time the seller gets a call from their financial institution that the buyer’s check was returned, the buyer is long gone with the money from the seller’s cashier’s check and the title. Sometimes the car has even been shipped!
2. This is a scam something like #1. An individual responds to a job want ad for a particular endeavor. The employer and employee agree on a position and the prospective employer mails the employee a check for “upfront, paid ahead first month’s salary” which, of course, we all know does not happen in the real world. The only caveat is that the employee mail back to the employer a cashier’s check for taxes, insurance and employee benefits which equals 1/3 of the upfront pay. You guessed it, the employer’s check is no good. By the time the employee gets the call from the bank that their first month’s upfront pay check was returned as a fraudulent item, the employee’s “taxes and benefits cashier’s check” is cashed and the money long gone!
3. Your financial institution’s “alleged” security department calls and wants to make sure you’re protected from a recent rash of scams regarding plastic cards. In order to help you the security person needs to verify certain pieces of information regarding your plastic card. The security person may already have some information on you to make you feel more comfortable talking with them. But, the catch is when you tell the scammer what they don’t know, like your card number, expiration date, PIN, and the super powerful 3 digit security number on the back of your card at the end of your signature line. By the time you get a thank you from the supposed security person and hang up the phone the scam will have already commenced. The perpetrator will use your information on their own to buy items, get cash, order items online, etc., or they may just sell your information to another charlatan for quick cash and the next fraudster will commence the illicit transactions.
Click here to read the rest of this article on page two from your University Credit Union Winter 2010 Newletter.