Post Office Cracks Down On Fake Check Scam

Officials Seize 540,000 With Face Value Of $2.1 Billion

(CBS/AP)  The e-mails arrive out of the blue, from Nigeria or other exotic countries. They tell of inheritances, political problems, other reasons someone needs to get money out of the country. If you help, they promise to let you share the money.

Unfortunately, thousands of people fall for the scam, losing an average of $3,000 to $4,000 each.

So far this year, an average of more than 800 people a month have filed complaints about such scams.

Hoping to stem the losses, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced an international crackdown Wednesday in which more than 540,000 fake checks with a face value of $2.1 billion have been seized.

Not all of the scams are as esoteric as the Nigerian wire transfer or rely on greed, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

Jill Parker, for example, lost thousands to an overseas con artist posing as a potential tenant. She listed her Chicago apartment for rent on the Internet and got an immediate offer from a businessman overseas.

"He agreed to take the apartment, and he said he said it would send us a check for $25,000," she said.

Parker was told to deposit that check, keep $3,600 to cover the rent, and wire the balance -- more than $21,000 -- to an account that the tenant claimed would be used for furniture. When the check initially cleared, she forwarded the cash. But, a week later, the renter's bank said it was fake, leaving Parker out of $21,000 of her own money.

"We would have never sent any money had we known that the money wasn't in our bank,” she said.

So far there have been 60 arrests in the Netherlands, 16 in Nigeria and one in Canada, the Postal Inspection Service said, and the effort is continuing.

"There is no room in the mail for any of these phony come-ons," Postmaster General John Potter said.

Most of the cons start with e-mails telling of an inheritance or lottery win and ask the victim to help bring the money to the United States. The victim is asked to cash a check that comes in the mail and to send part of the money back to the person sending it, said Greg Campbell, inspector in charge of global security and investigations for the Postal Inspection Service.

Then that person disappears with the money and the original check bounces, leaving the victim with a loss.

Retired people have lost their nest eggs and young families have been defrauded of their savings for a home, Potter said.

Many of the cases originate in the Netherlands, where West African con artists operate from Internet cafes, said Johan Van Hartskamp, commissioner of the Amsterdam police.

In what he called "Operation Dutch Treat," police have arrested 60 people there, with three extradited to the United States and four more facing extradition. The rest are being prosecuted in the Netherlands, he said.

Ibrahim Lamorde, director of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said the problem is monumental and "will only be surmounted through global efforts."

U.S. Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said: "There is no lottery. There is no inheritance. The checks are not real. But there are real victims. The crime knows no borders, and our coordinated law enforcement knows no borders."

[cosmodelirio]

Don''t think believe that only greedy idiots get fooled by these scams. I have heard of sellers getting ripped off by accepting a certified check, depositing it into their account, sending off the item, and then a week later the "certified check" turns out to be counterfeit. The bank isn''t going to take this loss....

[hwy71so]

Took them long enough. This has been going on for a few years now...

[nishaboston]

Common sense...If someone is giving you money why do you need to pay them to give you the money.

[drinuk]

The Golden Rule is Quite simple. If It Seems To Good To Be True, IT IS FRAUD! Nothing is for Nothing in this world.

[imperfexshun]

gwnissen, you can take the envelope with the contents (letter and check, etc.) and mark on the envelope "To the Postal Inspector" and give it to your postal carrier or a counter clerk at your post office. That will give them one more piece of evidence against the many scam artists. (Mark out any postal barcode on the bottom of the envelope or it may get sorted and sent back to you. If it does come back to you, mark it out and give it to the post office again, in person if possible instead of a drop box.)

[bbrundj]

Aw, c''mon we all know that a person named N''bowie Zagaraindi must be on the level. Just how do they get the e-mail addresses? Nigeria sure has a lot of wealthy misplaced heirs.

[cyinzl8r]

When foreigners see rich nation of 300 million can only manage a certified idiot as leader, then those foreigners realize that they hit the jackpot.

Shucks, even American scam artists have been having a feeding frenzy on Americans.
Posted by Agnim at 10:32 PM : Oct 03, 2007
---------------------------------
Are you seriously blaming this on Bush too?
Give it a rest already!

[gwnissen]

Thanks CBS for the reminder...my wife and I just got a possible renter for our home...Craigslist. We guessed it was fake...the "renter" would not send us photocopies of passport/visa thus we would not cash check. Same deal about sending on extra cash for furniture. We have the check, would it help authorities if we sent it to someone?

[agnim]

When foreigners see rich nation of 300 million can only manage a certified idiot as leader, then those foreigners realize that they hit the jackpot.

Shucks, even American scam artists have been having a feeding frenzy on Americans.

[agnim]

"Only idiots continue to fall for these BS scams over and over and over again, gezus man, these scams are like the oldest around, they have been in the news a billion times.
Posted by newster1 at 08:03 PM : Oct 03, 2007"

Do you realize that some Americans don''t know who their President or Vice President is, even though they have been in the news trillions of times? LOL

[adasher1]

What? WHAT? You mean I DO NOT get the money from my dead Uncle?

Actually, someone I know was selling a cell phone on an auction site and got hundreds of Emails to end the auction and accept a check for a Buy It Now for 100 times the value. This person finally did it, ended the auction, waited for the fake Western Union telegram, took a nice dump in a box, added a brick, wrapped it up, and sent it overseas C.O.D....bet that was a nice suprise for the perp.

[rfcnj68]

Sorry folks it is hard for me to feel sorry for someone who has no common sense. The bottomline is if it sounds to good to be true than it probably is. If you want to try and be a nice sucker than fine but be a smart one wait for the check to clear then send the money at this point you have what you were promised. On the other hand if it doesn''t clear than you are out only the time spent going to the bank and can turn this over to the authorities.

[ravnslikbals]

Want to quell this BS now?

1. Legislation - anybody caught ripping off a person by fraud or any other schemes to steal money - 50 years in prison.

2. Anybody requesting an investment via email - subject to fraud with a the sender doing a fulldisclosure. ISP''s must support or be shutdown.

3. Any foriegn country asking any American citizen for assistance must send registered letters to recipients.

[cb621]

Unbelievable. How can you send thousands of dollars to somebody you''ve never met in some foreign country??? Especially those people that cannot even spell the English language correctly!

[flolake]

"He agreed to take the apartment, and he said he said it would send us a check for $25,000," she said."

What a pootie sentence.

I suppose proof reading has now been outsourced to Bombay, much to my chagrin.

[keithle1]

Apparently stupid people are breeding. When will they learn?

Why are retired people so willing to gamble with their "nest eggs"?? Don''t you want security in your retirement? I don''t understand why they want to sink everything in some too-good-to-be-true pie-in-the-sky scam. Is it just greed that overtakes them? Or are they senile/have Alzheimers/"just lonely and the young man was so nice"?

Young families should know better. It''s in the news all the time. What do you have to do? Hit people over the head with a sledgehammer?

I saw a public service TV spot recently. Creepy sleazy guy on a bus giving a woman the hard sell about some scam with the point being that you wouldn''t fall for it if you were face-to-face with
the con artist but people seem willing to do so when they get an email.

The Nigerian emails that I have received are funny.

[mufuart]

I am aware of the scams, but recently I had a room for rent (a room!) and I must have received 40 emails, mostly from the UK, saying they will be coming to the States soon for an Internship for 6 months and that they would like to pay for the whole 6 months at a time. I am aware of these scams, but I don''t think that an ordinary citizen who decides to rent a room in his/her house would have any idea that these were scams. I received at least 40 such scam emails for this one room. mufuart

[nothappyatall]

Only idiots continue to fall for these BS scams over and over and over again, gezus man, these scams are like the oldest around, they have been in the news a billion times.
Far as I''m concerned if people are THAT stupid they deserve to lose their money,

[mheck131]

Hmmm. Is this why everyone else in the world thinks Americans are idiots? 2 people tried to scam me on a dating site (hmmm.. who would do something stupid like that), but once I hear the country NIGERIA I tell them yes and then close the chat. I''m never to be heard from again.

[a2fish43]

Unfortunately, senior citizens are hit the hardest by this type of fraud. Think of a child receiving a notice that he/she just won the lottery - the kid would probably believe it. The sophistication these people use is pretty abominable, and to those with a vulnerable innocence such as the elderly, the worst is likely to happen.
For the past two years I have had to track down several scams my elderly father has almost fallen victim to. Without my oversight he could have ended up in the same spot as those described in this report. More needs to be done within the senior communities to educate the elderly as these types of crime.
Even legitimate organizations can appear to be a scam until a few hours of homework verifies things are ok.