The check’s in the mail: Police warn of scams

By KATE MCCARDELL KERN
Published: July 15, 2008

Authorities are warning Marianna residents to stay cautious of checks in the mail that could end up costing victims thousands of dollars.
According to Marianna Police Chief Hayes Baggett, his department received multiple reports of check scams over Monday and Tuesday.
MPD distributed a news release Tuesday about the scams to alert residents.
There appear to be two different scams involving checks, both of which appear to come from or by way of Canada, according to MPD.
The best defense against these kinds of scams is education before someone falls victim, local law enforcement officials say. Investigations of such international scams takes time, federal and international cooperation, and a certain threshhold of monetary loss must be reached before such probes begin. Because of those complications, prevention is by far the best cure. In some cases, victims can find themselves held responsible for scams they fell for.
One of the ruses involves a mailed offer to a victim to become a “mystery customer,” being paid to shop and complete written evaluations of several well-known nation-wide businesses, according to the release.
“The offer includes a check for thousands of dollars to be spent at the various businesses while the mystery customer evaluates those businesses. One of the businesses that is on the evaluation list just happens to be a well known money wiring service. The letters’ instructions ask that the mystery customer wire half of the money from the check they receive to a location outside the United States; along with the provided evaluation forms you are to have diligently completed. The check received in the offer is of course not a real check but rather a very real looking forgery. Another name for mystery customer in this scam is ‘victim,’” said the release.
The other scam takes the tone of a lottery, consisting of a check in the mail for the victim in the amount of several thousand dollars, said the release.
The several thousand dollars is purported to be a partial payment toward a total of nearly one hundred thousand dollars. The mailing tells the victim that the partial payment is to assist the victim in paying taxes on the total winnings, as well as to cover processing fees that the victim is instructed to wire back to the “lottery company” from the partial payment check, explained the news release.
The release said both scams involve “very real looking forgeries.”
“What people need to understand is that when these forged checks are cashed or deposited it may take the bank a few days to determine that the check is in fact a forgery. If a person follows the instructions and wires the money, or spends it on something else, the banks will hold the person who cashed the check responsible. Most banks are catching on and placing an extended hold on such suspicious checks,” said the release.
“If a bank has been had, the cost is going to be passed along to that person,” said Baggett.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement provides descriptions of a variety of scams, frauds and methods of identity theft on its Web site at site at http://flcln.net/fc3/ .
The release added that anyone who feels they’ve become a victim of a scam or fraud should report it immediately to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, at http://www.ic3.gov and select the file a complaint button.
“Marianna Police Department urges anyone who may encounter a situation that is similar to those described above to please be aware and on guard against the possibility of a scam. If you have any questions about this scam bulletin please do not hesitate to call the Marianna Police Department,” said the release.
The number for the Marianna Police Department is (850) 526-3125.