Watch out for this scam

YP09

Today I got a letter with a Canadian stamp and no return address (red flag 1) with a letter and a check enclosed. The letter looks like it was typed up by a 9th grader. It's a mixture of black and red font colors, bolds, underlined, italics, bold-italics, and the header has a really crappy C&P company logo (red flag 2). It's grainy. Oh and it's ING Direct which is a real bank.The letter informs me that not only is it a Final Notice, but that they are pleased to "advice" me that I am one of the winners in the second category of "Sweepstake and Lottery Draw" held on April 16th. (red flag 3)There are claim numbers and apparently I have a ticket with a serial number etc etc. I am entitled to US $450,000.00 payable by bank draft, money order or certified check.The check (which looks very real) is from a company  called POS Plus, Inc. which is also a real company....from Minnesota. (red flag 4) The bank on the check is  Associated Bank, not ING Direct which is supposedly who is giving me this money. (red flag 5). The check is for $4,950 which is decucted from my winnings. The purpose of the check is to assist me in paying the "Non Resident Government Service Tax (GST)". Then they list a tax agent's name and address to whom I'm supposed to send $3,950 back through Western Union or Money Gram. That's not even a red flag, that's just a dead give-away.Oh and before I act on this notice, I MUST contact my assigned claims agents.I googled this and a lot of people got the same letter but they use different companies and banks on the checks. One person had Build-A-Bear Workshop!People are falling for this too! I can see why, the check looks so real and people are hurting for money. But seriously, it's too good to be true!

Calypso1977

what amazes me is so many people will sit right down and wire that 3950 without a moments hesitation.

danieliza1127

I wouldn't even have had to Google it to know that was a scam. 

georgia_bride09

I think my common sense would tell me to watch out for this scam since it seems like it is poorly executed in the first place.

betrothed123

You'd have to be quite dumb to fsall for that, or maybe uber trusting and living under a rock.

Pirata13

Calyso--I agree. I always wonder how that DOESN'T sound strange to someone...

vgmartinez

Yikes, that's scary! There's a ton of these going around. A company where I live was actually a victim of one of these scams. The scammers wrote checks to people in the name of this company and some were even cashed.  I would turn it in to the police just to let them know what is going on. Others may not be so hesitant to believe the notice and will fall for it.

teacherlady79

Make sure you contact the post office and/or the banks "involved." I saw a special on TV one night that they are really trying to hunt these people down and prosecute them. If nothing else, for mail fraud--which is a felony offense.

zippityb

The crappy bank I used to work for sends these $5 checks in the mail, and cashing them enrolls you in a program that ultimately costs a lot more than $5. I don't know why they waste their money doing that.

torontobride17

yes, let the bank know, and maybe even the police.

goheels05

People do fall for it, though, especially older people or poor people who don't have much access to computers.  There was an article in our local paper yesterday about a woman who fell for one of these scams and how lucky she is that charges aren't being brought up against her.

bethbloom

Contact the BBB too. They keep track of all this kind of stuff also.

betrothed123

I had someone place about seven orders through the company that I work for.  We sent out the first two, and then started getting suspicious.  After five of them we called the customer to find out what was going on.  Apparently she had met a "really nice" middle eastern guy who promised her that he'd take good care of her and she'd never want for anything.All of a sudden she was getting these packages in the mail that he was asking her to forward along to someone in Pakistan.  After forwarding a bunch of them she decided to look inside one of the packages.  There was a wad of cash in it (she said it was about $10,000).She had given this man all of her information and he had opened numerous credit cards in her name and was buying random stuff online and shipping it to her.  We told her to contact a few credit agencies, as well as giving her the information off all the credit cards they had used to contact those companies.  We then asked her if she'd be willing to send back the product that we had sent her.She sent back the first one, but she had given away the other one, because she couldn't figure out why she was getting this really expenisve stuff for free in the mail and decided she didn't need two of them.I felt kind of bad for her, but I had to wonder what world she lived in.

katiewhompus

We had a big one go through our company where people just had to pay $25 and then bring a coupon (which was printed after paying the $25 online) to their nearest store and receive their $500 gift card to the store. Safe to say, lots of pissed off people who were out $25 bucks and receiving no such reward.I almost got nailed on a word of warcraft spam. I was tired and not thinking and got a "your account will be closed" email. I started to respond then my dad (was visited) walked by and was like "What are you doing, that's a spam". Yeah...