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From South Yorkshire Police
Fraudsters are scanning "for sale" columns in newspapers
and the Internet to look for items for sale so that they can con the
vendor into cashing cheques that have been stolen. The following is an explanation received from the International Web Police: Dear Sir/Ma'am. Thank you for your reply. Sorry for any delay, We receive over 100 complaints a day in regards to the Nigerian 419er scam. In fact, The United States Secret Service is doing their own Investigation on Nigerian Scams. Anyone who falls for their scam can expect to lose all their money, Have their credit ruined, Be part of a major Identity theft ring and there is one known death caused by someone taking the law into their own hands and trying to go after them. On top of this, They do invite people to come visit them for another scam that targets the rich. Once they go over looking for an investment deal, They are kidnapped and held for ransom. Please do not make contact with these people. I have included some additional information on Nigerian 419er Scams you might be intrested in reading. HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY FROM THE FINANCIAL RUIN OF NIGERIAN 419 COUNTERFEIT cheque FRAUD The Nigerian Counterfeit cheque Fraud: Bankrupting thousands through online and offline Classifieds Between February and June of 2003, more than $25 Million Dollars disappeared into Nigeria, Kuwait, and China as a result of the latest Nigerian fraud - counterfeit cheques. You can figure that by now that amount has more than tripled. Here's how it starts You want to sell your old car, or Aunt Tillie's bureau, or those terrific dogs you breed? Just run an ad in any one of the online classifieds and you can reach an audience of thousands. One of those thousands is a swindler who has been patiently watching his screen all morning, just waiting for you - and several hundred other people - to post an ad. He or she will contact you by email or phone and offer to buy what you're selling, usually no questions asked, sight unseen. What a deal! Your item will be picked up on behalf of the so-called buyer by someone local. As for the payment, you'll be sent a cheque that's way over the amount you're asking. Please just go ahead and deposit the cheque and send the buyer the difference. Where do these cheques come from? In the beginning, most of the cheques arrived by mail with a return address of "Maryland, LAGOS." That is to say, they came from Nigeria but a quick glance would lead you to believe it arrived from the State of Maryland in the U.S. These days the cheques arrive from all over - Toronto, New York, Amsterdam, London, California (any one of the United States, actually), Malaysia, pick a country, any country. Pick a city, any city. The cheque forging rings are so widespread that members can be found just about anywhere. They stay in place on long enough to ensure the forged cheques arrive at their destination. Most communication from the phony buyer is received via email, cell phone, and satellite phone. Who says you can't cheat an honest man? Most Nigerian scams rely on a certain amount of greed on the part of the target and a willingness to overlook the legal aspects of the proposal, such as ferreting illegally acquired funds out of Nigeria or other countries. The Counterfeit cheque scam, on the other hand, is based on the total honesty of the swindler's target which is you, the seller. Following the buyer's request, you deposit the cheque into your account. If you have received a Cashier's cheque or have an excellent credit record with your bank, the cheque will be credited to your account without delay. If the funds were wired directly to your account from another bank, then there is no question that the money is readily available. You then immediately arrange for the excess funds to be wired to the bank account number the buyer has supplied to you for that purpose, or to forward the funds through Western Union. Your bank sends the funds out either that day or the following morning, or you run down to the nearest Western Union office to wire the funds to London or Italy or wherever. Shortly thereafter you receive a call from the bank and the roof falls in on you. Fact is, NO legitimate business transaction asks you to wire excess funds anywhere. It's simply not done for the basic reason that no legitimate business person is about to trust an absolute stranger with their money. Who ends up paying the price? In most instances, you are going to have to pay for the loss. That means you will have to make up for the amount that you wired - plus any of the money you spent. In rare instances, the bank will absorb the loss, but don't count on it. The reason for this is that when you endorse a cheque, you are vouching for the validity of that cheque. But what about Cashier's cheques? Or funds wired directly into your account? In those instances the liability is determined on a case by case basis. Some banks are on the alert for the scam, others are not. Nonetheless, the final responsibility lies with the depositor. You see, the only responsibility a financial institution has toward its customers is to keep each person's funds accounted for and safe from harm. Those are the basics. Beyond that, there are Federal regulations, state regulations, and internal regulations. Laws are different for Credit Unions, Commercial Banks, and brokerage houses. Each is accountable to a different oversight organization. How to REALLY verify that cheque Traditionally, we have been taught that the best way to verify the validity of any cheque is to call the account holder's bank. That is no longer a reliable source of information. Those days are gone forever. The fact is that the only response the account holder's bank can give you is based on an electronic verification. This only confirms that the account exists and that there are sufficient funds in that account at the moment of your call. In this day and age, one must contact the account holder himself. Only the account holder can provide definitive information as whether or not a cheque has been issued in your name for the requested product. Verifying a Money Order It sometimes happens that these swindlers use Money Orders. I haven't heard of too many cases, but it does occur. If you receive a Money Order, contact the Money Order company and make sure that you explain that you want to verify that the amount and Payee match their records. Verifying a Cashier's cheque But what about a Cashier's cheque? Well here's what you do. Ordinarily one calls the issuing bank. If this bank is huge, like Bank of America or Wells Fargo, one is put through a series of options on a voice menu. Again, if you go through the merchant verification routine, only the electronic validity of the cheque is confirmed. Skip that. Go directly to an assistant or whatever the real live person is called on the voice menu. Ask for the telephone number of the branch on which the Cashier's cheque is drawn. If you are asked why you need to speak to the branch, tell them that you need to get a physical verification of the Cashier's cheque you are holding. Call the branch. Now you will be able to receive a physical verification of the cheque you have in hand because a physical record is kept right there at the branch. That branch can immediately tell you whether that specific cheque was written for the amount indicated, and whether or not it was made out to you. Accepting Wired Funds Just say NO. Sometimes the swindlers will wire funds directly to your account. Under no circumstances whatsoever should you accept funds wired to you by a stranger. Why? Because you have no way of verifying the source of those funds. If you accept those funds, you may find out after it's too late that the source is a forged Cashier's cheque. What smart people are doing ... It is important to keep in mind that if you do not know the person with whom you are doing business, then be wary until you have a proven track record of dependability. Every day merchants are taken to the cleaners by bad cheques and stolen credit cards. It's no different if you are an individual selling your car in the classifieds. The smart thing to do is have the cheque verified before even depositing it into your account. Contact the owner of the cheque, or give the cheque to your bank telling them you want it physically verified for authenticity. ... and smarter still Do you know what an escrow account is? If you don't, here is an explanation of escrow services: An escrow service offers you the protection you need from being taken to the cleaners by swindlers, disagreements on receipt of product, misunderstandings, and all sorts of flies that can turn up in the ointment. Essentially, you are hiring a licensed and bonded 3rd party to hold the funds until all parties are satisfied with the transaction, at which point the buyer can order the release of his money to the seller. On the other hand, if the item is to be returned to the seller, the buyer can't access his funds until the seller agrees that he has received the item back in the same condition as it was upon shipment. Escrow services can be used for large ticket items, or small ones. It's better to pay for this service (you can include the fees in your product cost) than to find out that you are in a world of hurt because you didn't protect yourself when dealing with a stranger. Know Your Customer (KYC) This has become a byword for banks all over the world. It helps keep banks from unknowingly being used for money laundering and other criminal activities. Knowing your customer means that you are not merely taking the word of someone about whom you know nothing. Regardless of the financial transaction, you should never accept as gospel what you are being told. You MUST protect yourself and your family. The Bank's Role In order to understand the bank's role in all of this, you must first understand what a bank really is. In it's very simplest form, a bank is an accountant with a calculator, a ledger, a safe, and a license to take money in for safekeeping. Everybody's money is kept in the safe, and separated by owner in the ledger, not the safe. A simple system of debits and credits. That's it folks. Everything beyond that consists of add-on services to garner more deposits from customers so that the accountant can pay for the overhead. The way in which the accountant pays for the overhead is by charging a small fee for maintaining each account (i.e. accounting for the funds in his care), and by judiciously lending out a portion of the gross deposits. By charging interest on the loans, some of which is shared with the depositors, he can now pay for his office and his salary. A bank is a building that houses the accounts of its depositors None of the money in that building belongs to the bank itself, other than what it earns in fees for service and its portion of interest on loans and investments. The processes of modern banking are complex, particularly since the advent of electronic banking, the current tremendous growth of international trade and trade banking, and the seemingly endless rules and regulations, but the basics remain the same. So along comes Joe with a forged cheque from a Nigerian con artist. Granted, Joe doesn't know the cheque is forged, but that's not the real problem. The problem is where the money comes from that will go into Joe's account for him to spend. You see, in the case of a forged cheque, it comes from Joe's neighbors. It comes out of that "safe" we talked about in the first paragraph. Joes Bank And this is how it works. We'll call the place where Joe keeps his chequeing account "JoesBank." JoesBank electronically verifies the cheque that Joe brought in. In other words, a teller or bank officer looks up the cheque owner's account on a computer. Sure enough, there's money in the account on which the cheque is drawn. Joe's account is credited with the amount of the cheque. There are two processing possibilities for crediting Joe's account: 1. If the cheque is a Cashier's cheque or if Joe is a customer in good standing, Joe's account may be immediately credited with funds. "Immediately" means that a portion of the money in the JoesBank "safe" is credited to Joe's account pending receipt of the funds from the bank that issued the Cashier's cheque. Normally, the Cashier's cheque bank debits funds from its "safe" and sends them to JoesBank. JoesBank puts the funds from the Cashier's cheque bank back in its "safe." I'm simplifying here, but only by very little. No point in getting into each detail of how money moves through the Federal Reserve, going back and forth between banks. In any event, in this case the Cashier's cheque is denied, so there is no money to put back in the JoesBank "safe" to replace the money credited to Joe's account. 2. If the cheque is a regular corporate cheque, it's sent through the system. This means that a Hold is placed on the cheque until it clears. "Clears" is an electronic term. It means that the amount of the cheque is electronically conveyed to the account holder's bank as a debit, followed by the physical cheque which travels in what are called "batches" to a cheque clearing house. Again, I'm simplifying but it's not much more complicated than that. Basically, Brinks picks up a bag (batch) of cheques from JoesBank at the end of the banking day, drives them to the local cheque clearing house, and from there the cheques are sent off to the various banks they came from. Back to clearing the cheque. A cheque travels through the system electronically and physically. The cheque owner's bank acknowledges receipt of the debit, debits the cheque owner's account, and forwards the funds back through the system to be credited to JoesBank, then to Joe's account. Depending on the "route" (how many credit and debit processes the cheque owner's bank is from JoesBank), the entire process can take from just a few days to a couple of weeks. Now comes the sticky part Remember the physical cheque that Brinks picked up and transported to the clearing house? It is finally verified by actual eyes and declared invalid. If it's a Cashier's cheque or Money Order, that happens fairly quickly. If it's a corporate or personal cheque, eyes-on can take weeks depending on when statements are sent out and when the account holder actually eyeballs the cheque. Or verifies his account balance. Once the cheque has been declared invalid (this includes Cashier's cheques, Money Orders, Traveler's cheques, what have you), the cheque owner's bank sends a debit through the system, debiting JoesBank for the amount in full, plus handling fees. JoesBank has no choice but to allow the debit to be taken from its "safe." That specifically means a portion of the sum total of the money that Joe's neighbors have left with JoesBank for safekeeping, minus that which is out on loan and invested. That's how the ledger is kept. Depositor money in, depositor money out. Because of the bank's license, it is the bank's fiduciary responsibility to retrieve those funds by whatever manner possible. Since it was Joe's contractual responsibility as an account holder to be responsible for the true value of what he deposits into his account, Joe is the one to whom the bank turns. Bad cheques Bad cheques are a daily cost of doing business for any company. Happens all the time. Sometimes the company can recoup on a bounced cheque, sometimes its charged off to Bad Debt and becomes a Loss on the company's books. The company is out the amount of the cheque, plus the bounced cheque charge, plus the value of the product or service the cheque was written for. This may be tough on a company, but the financial consequences are far worse for the individual like Joe. In fact, the consequences can be overwhelming. Many banks in the U.S. have yet to adjust their system or their way of thinking to the onslaught of the Nigerian Counterfeit cheque Fraud. Yes, they could work out a loan with the victim for the entire amount of the loss plus expenses; but in many cases the victims are selling items because they are strapped for money to begin with. Some victims simply cannot afford to pay back a loan, leaving the banks to press on using whatever recourse is available to them. WESTERN UNION - WIRING MONEY INTO THE VOID Wiring funds through the banking system When you wire funds from your chequeing account to your cousin's chequeing account in Oshkosh, a paper trail is established. If your cousin calls you on Tuesday to find out where the money is that you wired last Thursday, your bank can track the path of the money through the banking system to see what went wrong. A record of transfer is generated each and every time the amount moves from one bank's ledger to the next. Wiring funds through Western Union That's not the case at all when you use Western Union. The only record kept by Western Union is of your funds being transferred from one of their accounts to another. For instance, if you are in Los Angeles and you wire funds to somebody in London, all that Western Union can tell you is that the funds were picked up in London, and at which office. Western Union takes your money and gives you a receipt. Your funds are then placed in the Los Angeles central Western Union account along with all the other monies they have received during the day from all over Los Angeles. Each transfer request is logged electronically such that your specific amount is then sent off to the central Western Union account in London. Once the funds are in a central account, the actual money can be picked up at any office covered by that account. Just because you were told to wire money to such-and-such a fellow at such-and-such a Western Union office does not mean he'll actually pick it up there. He can pick it up at an office clear across the city. Western Union can verify that the fellow who picked up the money carried the specified identification. They might even be able to tell you what he looked like. This doesn't really do you much good. His identification can be phony as the day is long. All you know when you wired the funds is what you were told. Once your guy walks out of that office, there is absolutely nothing to bring him back, unlike your cousin in Oshkosh who has an open bank account. There is no way to trace him. He's gone. And in the case of a scam, so is your money.
The laws that affect you as the holder of a Nigerian Counterfeit cheque US Criminal Code, Title 18, Section 113 Sec. 472. - Uttering counterfeit obligations or securities Whoever, with intent to defraud, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or with like intent brings into the United States or keeps in possession or conceals any falsely made, forged, counterfeited, or altered obligation or other security of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. Sec. 473. - Dealing in counterfeit obligations or securities Whoever buys, sells, exchanges, transfers, receives, or delivers any false, forged, counterfeited, or altered obligation or other security of the United States, with the intent that the same be passed, published, or used as true and genuine, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. Sec. 479. - Uttering counterfeit foreign obligations or securities Whoever, within the United States, knowingly and with intent to defraud, utters, passes, or puts off, in payment or negotiation, any false, forged, or counterfeited bond, certificate, obligation, security, treasury note, bill, or promise to pay, mentioned in section 478 of this title, whether or not the same was made, altered, forged, or counterfeited within the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. Sec. 480. - Possessing counterfeit foreign obligations or securities Whoever, within the United States, knowingly and with intent to defraud, possesses or delivers any false, forged, or counterfeit bond, certificate, obligation, security, treasury note, bill, promise to pay, bank note, or bill issued by a bank or corporation of any foreign country, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. What to do if you receive a Nigerian 419 fraud
United States Citizens and Residents
email the 419er materials, especially any Banking Data they have given you, to Task Force Main in DC at 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov marked Financial Loss - Contact Me ASAP and give your phone number.
Thank You, Bill
Howes General Internet Scam Information In this section we will publish general information on Internet/Email Scams
Phishing Phishing is a high-tech scam. The "phisher" uses spam or pop-up messages to trick you into giving out sensitive information like your passwords, credit card numbers, bank account information, or Social Security number. Funnily enough, phishing is nothing new. It used to be known simply as identity theft and the scammers usually did it over the telephone. The scammer would call you up and pretend to be someone from the bank asking you to confirm your account information, credit card numbers, PIN numbers, or passwords. Obviously the scammer was limited by the amount of time it took to ring each person, so identity theft never really took off until the advent of email spam and websites, which meant identity theft has become much more profitable and therefore widespread. Unfortunately, it is now an everyday occurrence. Here's how phishing works : The scammer uses spam to send the phishing messages. You'll receive an email or pop-up message that looks like it's from a business or organization that you deal with – e.g. your
Internet service provider (ISP), AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and Earthlink So, you click on the link in the email and it takes you to a website that looks just like the legitimate organization’s site, but it's a carefully constructed fake. This fake site tricks you into entering your personal information. Using this information, the scammer can then steal your identity and run up bills or commit crimes in your name. Phishing is becoming big business. In September 2003, the US Federal Trade Commission reported that "9.9 million U.S. residents were victims of identify theft during the previous year, costing businesses and financial institutions $48 billion and consumers $5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses." Phew, that's a lot of people and a lot of money! The biggest phishing scam in history occurred in November 2003, when a PayPal phishing message was sent to millions of people irrespective of whether they had a PayPal account or not. The scammers knew that there would be enough people with PayPal accounts to make it worthwhile for them. So you probably want to know how to avoid phishing scams. Change your attitude and behaviour towards suspicious emails and pop-up messages. Become more vigilant. If in doubt, delete it. That's why MailWasher has a 'Delete' box! Check
carefully the URLs (links to websites) within the email by using the
preview pane in MailWasher. They might be links to fake websites.
Install security software. Nowadays, you need a firewall and an antivirus as much as you need locks on your doors at home. You wouldn't go out leaving all your doors open, would you? Some phishing emails contain software that can track your activities on the Internet without you knowing about it, so make sure you're screening your incoming mail with up-to-date antivirus software. You need anti-virus software that recognizes the latest threats as well as older ones; that can fix the damage; and that updates automatically. These products are all good bets: Panda
- http://www.pandasoftware.com/
A
firewall blocks all communications from unauthorized sources and helps
make you invisible on the Internet. A firewall is especially important
if you have a high-speed Internet connection. Hackers love to take
over broadband machines because then they can use them to spread spam
even faster!
Finally, make sure you keep up-to-date with Microsoft's patches. The
latest research shows that an unpatched Windows XP computer has a
life expectancy of less than 20 minutes before it is compromised.
That's less time than it takes to download the patches! Nick
Bolton and the team at Firetrust
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