Sep 5, 2006 10:02 pm US/Central

Secret Service Warns About Check Cashing Scheme

Stephanie Lucero
Reporting

(CBS 11 News) DALLAS The Better Business Bureau says scam artists are using a Dallas address to lure victims into a check-cashing scheme. The U.S. Secret Service is warning consumers not to take the bait.

Investigators believe con artists are preying on people who want to earn an honest living.

“It's a scheme to really steal money from you. Making you think that you're processing payments,� said Jeannette Kopko, Better Business Bureau.

An ad, under the company name Porell Partners, claims to be an international financial group with offices in Switzerland, Russia and Dallas - but the address listed on Crescent Court does not exist.

The company claims to be hiring couriers who will transfer funds to them from their clients in the U.S.

“But what you discover is the check they've initially sent to you is counterfeit and although the bank may accept it initially, you're on the line with the bank,� Kopko said.

The U.S. Secret Service says victims typically use their personal bank accounts - keep about 10-percent as income and then wire cash to the bogus business in another country. It looks legitimate but law enforcement says its not.

Bill Flowers, with the U.S. Secret Service says, “They copy other business journal's information about the business, or a CEO, or a president of that company and make it sound like you're dealing with an established company, when you're not. You're dealing with someone who has pirated that information.

Flowers says finding the con artists has been nearly impossible. “Once that money has been picked up on the receiving end, all investigative leads are gone.

The U.S. Secret Service says the scam artists are persuasive and very persistent. Once they've made their initial contact with their would-be victim, the scheme appears to be very convincing.


(CBS 11 News)
http://cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_...248221900.html

Officials Warn So Cal Residents About Mail Scam

Authorities Wednesday warned Southern California residents about a widespread scam in which residents receive an official-looking letter and a printed "check" naming them as sweepstakes winners.

Police have been receiving three to five reports a week about the scam letters, Los Angeles police Lt. Paul Vernon said.

"The letter asks the `winner' to send a cashier's check back to the sweepstakes company, which promises more cash once a `non-residence tax' is paid up-front," Los Angeles police Lt. Paul Vernon said.

The printed checks, although realistic-looking, are phony, Vernon said.

In one case, a man in the West Adams area received a letter telling him he won $75,000, with a phony $2,700 check enclosed. The man mailed back a real cashier's check for $2,580 -- to cover the so-called tax.

The letterhead on the "winner's notice” read "Metropolitan Clearinghouse" of Manassas, Va.

Most of the frauds have been uncovered when police are notified that "winners" are trying to cash bogus checks at check-cashing businesses, many of them in low-income areas, Vernon said.

Some recent recipients have admitted to police that they knew the letter was a scam, but tried to cash the enclosed checks anyway, according to Vernon.

"At first, we were not prosecuting these persons, as they are victims," Vernon said. "But more recently, we have arrested several recipients who approached check-cashing stores trying to pass the checks, even after they were told the checks were no good."

Detectives urged anyone receiving suspicious-looking sweepstakes letters to call police


http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_256162700.html

Cybercrime Becoming More Organized
By Matthew Jones, Reuters
September 15, 2006

LONDON (Reuters)�Cyber scams are increasingly being committed by organized crime syndicates out to profit from sophisticated ruses rather than hackers keen to make an online name for themselves, according to a top U.S. official.
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Christopher Painter, deputy chief of the computer crimes and intellectual property section at the Department of Justice, said there had been a distinct shift in recent years in the type of cyber criminals that online detectives now encounter.

"There has been a change in the people who attack computer networks, away from the 'bragging hacker' toward those driven by monetary motives," Painter told Reuters in an interview this week.

Although media reports often focus on stories about teenage hackers tracked down in their bedroom, the greater danger lies in the more anonymous virtual interlopers.

"There are still instances of these 'lone-gunman' hackers but more and more we are seeing organized criminal groups, groups that are often organized online targeting victims via the Internet," said Painter, in London for a cyber crime conference.

Typically these groups engage in ID theft, carding (the illegal use of bank cards) and so-called Botnet armies where hundreds sometimes thousands of computers are taken over and used to infect other machines.

HARD TO TRACE

Precise figures on the global cost of online crimes are hard to pin down, in part because some organizations prefer to keep quiet rather than publicize that their networks have been successfully attacked.

In other cases companies and individuals are unaware they have been defrauded.

The FBI estimates all types of computer crime in the U.S. costs industry about $400 billion while in Britain the Department of Trade and Industry said computer crime had risen by 50 percent over the last two years.

"Because crimes are committed online a lot of people still don't understand what is happening," said Painter.

A growing worry is that cyber crooks could target emergency services for extortion purposes or that terrorists may be tempted to attack critical utility networks like water and electricity.

Painter said there was a recent case in the U.S. where two young hackers inadvertently switched off all the lights at the local airport.

"There is no question the threats are varied and the perpetrators are more sophisticated," he said. "On the upside the response is also getting better."

Transborder co-operation on Internet crime was improving with a number of large multi-country raids demonstrating national enforcement agencies can work well together.

Painter said better detection and more successful prosecutions also needed to be mirrored by appropriate sentencing.

"In the United States certainly sentencing has become more significant in the recognition of the seriousness of Internet crime."

He said hackers were being viewed less as "playful villains" while organized cyber criminals were being hunted with the same vigor as physical crooks.

Copyright Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/...2016473,00.asp

Check Fraud Scheme Uses Bank To Seem Legitimate
Woman Says She Learned Lesson

POSTED: 9:21 am CDT September 21, 2006
UPDATED: 9:36 am CDT September 21, 2006
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OMAHA, Neb. -- A new scam uses banks as unwitting accomplices to take consumers' money.

Avesjha Wilson said she posted her resume on Monster.com and was hired by a company called Recruit Med Inc. as a part-time data entry specialist.

"It wasn't anything about data entry. That was the tricky thing about it. Nothing to do with data entry," Wilson said.

Instead, Wilson said, Recruit Med Inc. instructed her to cash checks sent to her in the mail, take out a 6 percent commission, then send the rest of the money to a post office box in London. The first check was for $3,900.

"It was made out to me," Wilson said.

Wilson said it looked legitimate. It was drawn on a Wells Fargo bank account. She took it to the bank’s branch at 51st Street and Ames Avenue in Omaha and cashed it. Wilson said she is not a Wells Fargo customer, and she was surprised to be able to walk out with cash.

The check turned out to be fake.

For security and privacy reasons, Wells Fargo declined to comment on the case.

The Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance said it is surprised that the bank cashed the check. The banking department says most banks would hold a check for that amount until it could verify the transaction with the account holder.

As for consumers who may be tempted by this scheme, the Better Business Bureau’s Jim Hegarty warned that all similar offers are almost certainly scams. Hegarty said that by cashing the check, Wilson unintentionally participated in a crime.

"You are abetting the scammers in this endeavor," he said.

Wilson had already wired $3,600 to Recruit Med Inc. before she had second thoughts and went back to Western Union to stop the transaction. She could only get $1,000 back.

"Luckily, the bank was lenient with me, and I didn't get in big trouble for it," Wilson said.

She said she returned the $1,000 to the bank and learned a valuable lesson: If it's fast cash without an honest day's work, it's probably a scam.

"It's crazy," she said.

The Better Business Bureau said check fraud schemes are on the rise. If you have any questions about the legitimacy of a check you should contact the BBB or a banking official.

Copyright 2006 by KETV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.ketv.com/news/9901491/detail.html

Secret shopper scam buys trouble
UPDATED Oct. 5, 2006 12:13 PM EST
PUBLISHED: Wednesday, October 4, 2006

BY JEANNE KNIAZ
VOICE REPORTER
A letter from Shopping Group Inc. to a local resident, stating that she had been chosen to represent their company as a paid secret shopper, sounded too good to be true and it was.
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The company purports to be a "secret customer" employment firm to help more than 1,250 businesses enhance their customer service to clientele through a mystery shopper program. An evaluation checklist, displaying the logos of many major businesses, accompanied the letter.

Also enclosed was a cashier's check, in the amount of $4,875, and a list of activities that the woman from Memphis, as a selected mystery shopper, was instructed to perform.

In the letter, she was advised to cash the check, keep $886 for herself as expense money and training pay; spend $50 and $40 at selected businesses; fill out and return evaluation forms as to the service received at those stores and last, but not least, forward to Shopping Group Inc., a Western Union transfer in the amount of $2,500 and a MoneyGram transfer for $1,200.

The rest of the funds were to be applied toward service charge fees for the money transfers. The cashier's check appeared to be drawn from the Brentwood Bank in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania; but it was counterfeit, according to police.

"It is a fictitious check," confirmed Brentwood Bank Vice President Craig Reisz. "We have had numerous inquiries, and people have tried to deposit these checks into their bank accounts. It is one of the oldest 'If it sounds too good to be true, it is' scams that people are falling for."

On the check, typed beneath the name of the bank, is a telephone number.

When dialed last week, a recorded message thanked the caller for phoning "Brentwood Bank" and callers were given extension options - press one to verify a check, two for mortgages and financial planning, or three for customer service and account information.

If extension two were selected, the caller was asked to leave a message. Extensions one or three directed the caller to a woman.

"I only do check verifications," she said, when called last week.

Questions concerning account information or customer service resulted in the caller being put on hold - indefinitely.

When asked to verify the cashier's check sent to the Memphis resident, she asked for the check and routing numbers printed on the draft and then indicated that it was "authentic."

"Yes, it is a valid check," she attested. Told there were concerns as to the check's validity, the woman said: "The check is a good one. There is no doubt about it. You can cash it."

After being informed that the Better Business Bureau Web site had posted an alert concerning Shopping Group Inc., the call was put on hold and, moments later, terminated.

"That is what they do," said Reisz. "There is a person who answers calls made to that phone number, but it is not the bank that people are reaching. Someone is on the other end telling people what they want them to believe. It is not just our bank that this is happening to - it can be any bank anywhere, at any location, across the country. This time scammers just happened to pick our bank."

The scam succeeds when the recipient cashes the check at their local bank. Victims, while waiting for the check to clear, will draw against funds in their bank accounts to carry out other directives in the letter such as forwarding money to the company.

When finally informed that the cashier's check is fraudulent, it is too late for them to recoup any funds they may have forwarded or spent out of their own pockets.

"There is no way to recover the money from Western Union," said Reisz. "It is money down the drain."

Shopping Group Inc. lists an address of Suite 290, 80 Queen Street in Kitchener, Ontario.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber of Commerce, located at 80 North Queen Street in Kitchener, did not have a record of SGI and indicated no company by that name is currently located at 80 North Queen Street.

The Better Business Bureau serving Midwestern and Central Ontario has received several inquiries about SGI and currently has five complaints pending concerning sales practice and contract issues. Their Web site also posts an alert, dated Aug. 23, 2006, from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in Washington, D.C. to, among others, all state banking authorities, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The warning concerns counterfeit checks being presented for payment, both locally and nationwide, in connection with a lottery scam, payable in the amounts of $3,500 and $4,875, that may show the remitter as Crown Locators Inc. or Shopping Group Inc.

Fortunately, the Memphis senior citizen who received the check in the secret customer scam made inquires prior to acting on her perceived good fortune. She phoned the Better Business Bureau, the U.S. Postal Inspector and Phone Busters.

"I'm glad I did all the necessary calling before I did the hip-hip-hooray to the bank," she said.

The BBB of Detroit and Eastern Michigan can be contacted at (248) 644-9100 to investigate the reputation of a company.

In an alert issued in June of this year, the BBB and State Attorneys General offered guidelines for verifying the authenticity of checks received from unfamiliar sources.

n Verify that the draft has been drawn from an authentic account at a lawful institution. Be aware the phone number on the check may be bogus, so use directory assistance or a telephone book to obtain the legitimate phone number of the financial institution.

n Confirm that the bank has completed all procedures for colleting the funds before drawing against the check.

n If concerns arise as to the legitimacy of a transaction, consult the bank or credit union.

It also advises that victims of fraudulent checks drawn on a federally insured financial institution should contact the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation at (877) 275-3342.

If the draft is drawn from a foreign bank, contact the United State Secret Service at (202) 406-5572

TheVoiceNews.com

OK, this is scary. And huge. My source below, a reader of this blog, posted to my previous blog about a job version of the check cashing scam.

Ths scam lures job hunters into cashing checks for the "such and such Holdings, LLC" or similar sounding name, usually in the UK, and you keep 10 percent. Then sometime after the legal period allowed for the cashier's check to clear, the bank realizes the check is bogus. By then, your check to the criminal *has* cleared, and you're left holding the bag for whatever the difference.

In the case below, the check to be cashed was made out by Time-Warner for over $35,000! And even for that amount and the size of the brand being defrauded in this crime, the FBI won't respond and local agencies are too busy. So I'm copying his posting, below, in full, for you to read yourselves:

"Today I received a check from TIME WARNER in the amount of $35,100.00 to deposit into my bank. I am to keep 10%.

I am supposed to be a receiving agent for Harvey Holdings in the UK.

If anyone wants to know more... Please contact me. FBI notified but they didn't come out to see me. Local police are too busy.

Thanks
Fred Gomez
505.640.0447
lascrucesadvocate@gmail.com
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/8823

Police Warn of Secret Shopper Scam

FRUITLAND -- Fruitland Police believe there are several victims of an international scam across the Eastern Shore who might be too embarrassed to come forth and report the crime.

Recently, employment ads in area newspapers have advertised for "shoppers" to test a company service, claiming that if they perform this job, they will be paid thousands of dollars.

When consumers contact the company about the position, they are told they can earn money by purchasing items at different stores or dining at different restaurants. The company then sends an employment packet that includes business evaluation forms, a training assignment and a fake cashier's check, often ranging between $2,000 and $4,000.

The first training assignment is to pose as a customer and wire money to a supposed relative by using the services of Western Union. The consumer is told to cash the fake cashier's check at their local bank and wire the money to an address in Canada. The check is phony and bounces after the consumer deposits the check into his or her personal account and wires the money, leaving the consumer liable for the fake check, police said. Consumers are told they have 48 hours to complete the assignment or they will lose their job.

A legitimate company will never send someone a cashier's check out of the blue or require someone to send money to a stranger, police said. The scam artists use realistic looking documents, the secret nature of the job and the 48-hour deadline to pressure consumers into cashing the check and wiring the money quickly before the bank or the consumer can determine it was a fake check. Fruitland police say the scam is difficult to investigate on a local level.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs...610100320/1002