Sullivan County, NY – Fake companies are preying on college students and senior citizens across our region, sending bogus prize checks and offering thousands of dollars in exchange for consumer research, the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office said.
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The scams, which have begun landing in mailboxes this month, come in two forms. One awards unclaimed prize money to randomly selected winners. The other offers money to “mystery shoppers” who will perform consumer research by spending some of the cash in big box stores and then fill out a survey on the quality of their customer service.
Both are accompanied by convincing checks that have watermarks and fake routing numbers. Participants are asked to deposit the checks into their bank accounts and then wire some of the money, via MoneyGram or Western Union, to other participants or back to the company to cover taxes. But the fake checks ultimately bounce, and the money you send will come out of your own pocket, police said.
“The check bounce around in the system until somebody eventually picks one up and says, ‘Wait, this is bogus,’” Undersheriff Eric Chaboty said.
Many scam letters originated in Canada. Local police are working with national authorities to track the scam artists. Banks do not help those who are tricked, police said.
Offers have largely targeted senior citizens and college students, two groups that are especially vulnerable during the economic slump. Rose Whitcomb, a 22-year-old college student from Bethel, cashed a fake check she received because she had bills to pay and had recently lost her job.
“The letter came from a real company and the check had a watermark,” Whitcomb said. “It seemed legit.”
Whitcomb deposited the $4,900 check, did undercover shopping for shampoo, and wired money to other mystery shoppers—except there was no money to send. The scam cost Whitcomb thousands of dollars, and now she’s searching for two jobs to repay her bank.
I don’t know how this is even physically possible to occur. Doesn’t the bank make you wait quite a while for the funds to “clear”. You would have to have a total avaiable balance greater than the check amount to “cash” the check? There is no such thing as a “free lunch”,anyway. People like this get scammed because they are foolish ,gullible, and greedy- they “want” to believe the check is real, but even a small amount of critical thinking on their part and they would know fake as a three dollar bill.
three dollar bills are fake?
gee whiz. what am i going to do with all those bills i have stashed away?
This is true I advertized a apt I get a email saying that she is from out of town wants the apt will send me a check fromn her company & I should send her change I knew its a scam and made full reasearch& didn’t send her the refund but did the deposit the check & they took out the money from my account a month later
This is how they explained it
ther was a good routing number but a diffrent bank name with a other banks address
Now cause the checks have a touting number the banks don’t know its fake so they credit you after 2 days in between this chech roams around one bank to the other until its determined that its false then it arrives back to your bank usally about a month later then your bank takes the money back from your acount while u sent them back a refund already
Try depositing it will see
(Actually a good loan for a month loool