Cheque Scam

[quyen]

My father recently had a reply to a place he advertised for rent. The reply was by email from abroad and offered to pay by cheque for the deposit and 1 month in advance. On top of that, they said they would pay him an extra £2,000 by cheque which they would like him to pass on to an agent (once he has cashed the cheque)to buy a plane ticket for them to come over!

Now I am sure this is a scam but can anyone explain how it works? Thanks.

[danrc]

Open a bank account, put the money in and see what happen's. If nothing then your all good, if they try it on then you've not lost anything.

[thinfourth2]

The cheque clears

You send on the 2grand to the agent

The bank then withdraws the funds as the cheque is found to be dodgy

I suggest telling them to foxtrot oscar

[Amused2death]

vaiation on the scam with the bank drafts....You pay cheque in, appears to clear, you send money. Weeks later bank says..."hang on, this cheque is a forgery, we want our money back from you", you owe bank the money that you sent off.

Scammed.....

[Jasandjules]

I have some magic beans, may I interest you? To you, just £100 for three... Just send me a cheque....

[cobra kid]

I was told over the phone by a customer service person at First direct that a cheque never ever actually clears. It's all based on a trust system.

[SS HSV]

quyen said:

My father recently had a reply to a place he advertised for rent. The reply was by email from abroad and offered to pay by cheque for the deposit and 1 month in advance. On top of that, they said they would pay him an extra £2,000 by cheque which they would like him to pass on to an agent (once he has cashed the cheque)to buy a plane ticket for them to come over!

Now I am sure this is a scam but can anyone explain how it works? Thanks.

Definately without doubt a scam. DO NOT ACCEPT IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

I speak from a friends personal experience and even after she asked the abnk if it was a 'good cheque' they still demanded the £3k back in the form of a loan.

[Mars]

Amused2death said:

vaiation on the scam with the bank drafts....You pay cheque in, appears to clear, you send money. Weeks later bank says..."hang on, this cheque is a forgery, we want our money back from you", you owe bank the money that you sent off.

Scammed.....

Not possible any more. After 6 working days banks will honour your money.

Story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7112829.stm

Further proof here: http://www.rbs.co.uk/content/corporate/banking/leg...

[cobra kid]

Mars said:

Amused2death said:

vaiation on the scam with the bank drafts....You pay cheque in, appears to clear, you send money. Weeks later bank says..."hang on, this cheque is a forgery, we want our money back from you", you owe bank the money that you sent off.

Scammed.....

Not possible any more. After 6 working days banks will honour your money.

Story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7112829.stm

Further proof here: http://www.rbs.co.uk/content/corporate/banking/leg...

Ah I see....it was well over a year ago I spoke to the First Direct woman then.

[Parrot of Doom]

Open a bank account, get a cheque book, immediately close the account, send them a cheque for £2000 from that account.

See how the fkers like it.

[richyb]

thinfourth2 said:

The cheque clears

You send on the 2grand to the agent

The bank then withdraws the funds as the cheque is found to be dodgy

I suggest telling them to foxtrot oscar

Spot on. Surely no one falls for this type of scam anymore?

[quyen]

Mars said:

Amused2death said:

vaiation on the scam with the bank drafts....You pay cheque in, appears to clear, you send money. Weeks later bank says..."hang on, this cheque is a forgery, we want our money back from you", you owe bank the money that you sent off.

Scammed.....

Not possible any more. After 6 working days banks will honour your money.

Story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7112829.stm

Further proof here: http://www.rbs.co.uk/content/corporate/banking/leg...

So the banks are taking all the risk. What measures are they putting in place to avoid such scam then? Surely this must go on a lot.

[Deluded]

But what isn't explained is what the scammers benefit from running a scam like this.

They send a cheque, it bounces after being found as fake and then whoever cashed it owes the bank the money back. The £2000 that was given to an agent to buy a plane ticket does not get back to the scammers.

Take the deposit but tell the lazy fkers to buy there own tickets.

[Alfa_75_Steve]

Deluded said:

But what isn't explained is what the scammers benefit from running a scam like this.

They send a cheque, it bounces after being found as fake and then whoever cashed it owes the bank the money back. The £2000 that was given to an agent to buy a plane ticket does not get back to the scammers.

Take the deposit but tell the lazy fkers to buy there own tickets.

The 'agent' is one of the scammers.

[MrsRoo.]

quyen said:

So the banks are taking all the risk. What measures are they putting in place to avoid such scam then? Surely this must go on a lot.

We have recently had a large increase in attempted cheque fraud where I work but with various computer generated reports that detail unusual activity on accounts and manually checking the cheques we receive to ensure it is genuine means that loses are extremely rare. I work for a charity, so can not afford to lose any money to something like this, larger banks often have a write-off budget for fraud loses which is all costed in to the products they offer to customers. Cheque books that have been intercepted in the post and counterfeit cheques made up by the fraudster with genuine account details on are used in various types of scams to con unwary people out of money. This gives some info on the various scams that are all too frequent:

http://www.safefromscams.co.uk/

[Mars]

quyen said:

Mars said:

Amused2death said:

vaiation on the scam with the bank drafts....You pay cheque in, appears to clear, you send money. Weeks later bank says..."hang on, this cheque is a forgery, we want our money back from you", you owe bank the money that you sent off.

Scammed.....

Not possible any more. After 6 working days banks will honour your money.

Story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7112829.stm

Further proof here: http://www.rbs.co.uk/content/corporate/banking/leg...

So the banks are taking all the risk. What measures are they putting in place to avoid such scam then? Surely this must go on a lot.

No, they are simply not waiting to "cash up" between themselves and other banks for months on end as they used to. Now they talk to each other more often and seek to balance their books more regularly. Should be pretty easy in the information age... you'd think they would have done this a decade ago.

So, if the sender's cheque is fraudulent, you'll get notified within 6 working days. Outside of that and the money's yours.

Edited by Mars on Friday 5th September 01:18

[paolow]

Alfa_75_Steve said:

Deluded said:

But what isn't explained is what the scammers benefit from running a scam like this.

They send a cheque, it bounces after being found as fake and then whoever cashed it owes the bank the money back. The £2000 that was given to an agent to buy a plane ticket does not get back to the scammers.

Take the deposit but tell the lazy fkers to buy there own tickets.

The 'agent' is one of the scammers.

pay him with a mooody cheque?

[speedy_thrills]

Parrot of Doom said:

Open a bank account, get a cheque book, immediately close the account, send them a cheque for £2000 from that account.

You can have cheques printed for you, no need to go to the lengths of opening a real account . There is a whole range of printers and inks out there you can buy that would make something passable as the real thing.

Washing is the way to go more often though, it’s a real signed cheque written for a real account. With a little nail polish remover and Sellotape (maybe a few other things) you have a blank, signed check but it does depend on how the cheque is made (Some have safety measures against this, try submerging one of your own cheques in Acetone and see if it had a chemical marker activated that will probably read “Void” or similar). There are ways around this of course…

[Dog Chops]

Rearrange the following words into a well known phrase or saying:

"Bargepole touch fvcking with dont a"

Also, it is a criminal offence to pass fraudulent cheques (including if you pay it into a bank account) so you would have some explaining to do to the Bib...

FMI, visit http://www.scamwarners.com/ or read the forums at http://forum.419eater.com/forum/