So, I just got the email newsletter from the Brobdingnagian Bards,
a Texas RenFaire musical group. Apparantly, they were recently
taken for a large sum of money by an internet scam. Read about it
here:
http://www.marcgunn.com/2007/10/warning-to-musicians-internet-wedding.shtml
To summarize, if you play weddings and someone named “Pitt Andre”
hires you, then asks for the money back, wait a few weeks for the bank
to make sure the check is real.
Ouch!
djm
Or, more precisely, if anyone sends you a check for anything, and you do not personally know and trust the person, never send a refund until your bank has assured you that the check has completely cleared. Or, better, wait 2 weeks as official policy.
Always immediately distrust anyone who sends more than the correct amount.
Yep. There is apparently a brisk trade in stolen checks (or cheques). It’s tough getting the money out of the banks unless you can get some poor innocent to cash it for you. And here is another way it gets done.
This is a common scam type and it can apply to anything. Awhile back, we were looking for roommates on craiglist. The majority of the people that responded to the posting were either from out-of-state or overseas. They end up sending a checking for a amount higher than what is required and then shortly after, ask for the difference or will cancel outright and ask for the money back. Often, the bank will clear the check intially and then come back to you when they later find out the check was fake. I’ve never fell for it but the landlord was nearly taken even though I warned her beforehand.
Whatever happened to musicians insisting on cash so they could convert immediately it into alcohol and illegal comestibles?
I find it incredible that in America a credit card is cleared within seconds, often wirelessly, but it takes several days to clear a check (and checks are still physically sent from state to state by banks). Weird. And so 1930s.
Of course they should have become suspicious the moment someone claimed to want to hire the Brobdingnagian Bards for a wedding.
Perhaps they rented a very large hall and were concerned that not enough guests would attend to fill it up.
Not so, my dear Bloomfield (about the check clearing time, I mean). There’s an evil machine out there in retail world that clears checks for a retailer almost immediately. My landlord uses one (I got a whiny note that we aren’t to use gel pens because the computer struggles to read it) and I received information from my bank about six months ago that it’s becoming more common so don’t plan on any leeway for check clearing time–you don’t know who’s using it and who isn’t.
Susan
You’re right. Sometimes they give you your check right back because all they had to do was run it through the machine to debit you. So why would it take so long for the scammer’s check to be revealed as fraudulent?
I’ve yet to see it. (But then people have stopped accepting my checks long ago.)
A handyman who works for me will take a check I’ve written and cash it at the local, momandpop grocery. The store has one of those gizmos, and it sucks the money out of my bank account instantly. Shows up on my statement as something like “Check number XXXX cashed electronically.”
Best wishes,
Jerry
Wow. The 1980s finally come to America. I’m impressed.
Up until last year, my uncle was the guy who fed the checks into
a machine at a bank warehouse. The machine reads the checks and
does the actual electronic transfer. It probably still runs a Cobol
program written by my father before I was born. So, the checks
were collected by the bank and were eventually sent to the
warehouse where they were fed into the machine. So, much of the
time was taken up by physical travel to where the machine was
kept. Recently, a law was passed that allowed checks to be
completely electronic from bank to bank. So, a machine that reads
the check can be at the bank (including inside an ATM) and the
check can be electronically cleared in seconds. I don’t know why
congress took so long to get around to doing this. It probably had
something to do with technology, and something to do with not
putting people like my uncle out of a job (a decidedly European
ideal…)
Walmart does this, too.
I’ve had my present bank account for 22 years now. I still haven’t used up my first cheque book. If I pay cash for everything then I know the money has gone immediately rather than finding some shop has hung on to the cheque for a week or more before bothering to bank it.
Having said that I do remember one of the presenters of the holiday show on TV being told by a New York hotel “I’m sorry sir, we don’t take cash”.
It´s just too sad…
A fellow called Stephen wrote:
"Hints of the scam:
Internet stranger.
The cheque was for too much.
(Just these two had my alarm bells ringing).
He wanted the room sight-unseen.
really eager to send the cheque
Didn’t want to issue a replacement cheque
Insisted that I WIRE the extra money back (no return cheque).
Wouldn’t give me any usable contact info.
Cheque was in a different name than his supposed company.
A US executive with an incredibly thick Nigerian accent?
Do not expect the banks to cover your ass — they’re using everything they’ve got to cover their own."
Very nicely put. It´s like a manual to avoid scams.
From my own experience (I had my own company for some time) it´s your greed that the con man capitalizes from. If a deal is too good to be true, it probably is!
Two things puzzles me:
Why is Nigeria the home base of the letter- and email scams? Periodicaly i get tons of these funny letters in my mailbox. Often something like this: “I´m the former dictator of Ruretania. I´d like to use your bank account to deposit all the zillions I have fleeced from my beloved country. You will recieve 1 percent when the deal goes thru!” The first time, years ago, I must amit I became a little greedy too — wow… 1 percent of a zillion Ruretanian dollars, thats a zillion for me too! I can´t imagine anyone falling for this. But surely there must be someone, or the letters would stop coming.
Internationally and in the US checks are still popular. Here in sweden I haven´t seen a check for at least 20 years. I don´t even own a checkbook and I don´t think I know someone who does. It´s either cash or credit card. Ofcource checks (cashiers checks) are still in use for very large sums of money. The banks tried to introduce a new sytem called Cash Card 6-7 years ago (a card with a microchip loaded with your money) but it didn´t cach on.
They are known as “419 scams” which refer to a criminal code number in Nigeria. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud.
And, if you are looking for an interesting read, check out this article on something known as “scam baiting”: