Cheque Fraud scam - They got me big time!

sian_aiken

I need some advise... I have been conned by some very clever people and am currently £2700 worse off that i was 2 days ago. I will summarise the story below and if anyone can give me advise on how i can get my money back i would REALLY appreciate it.

I own a property and rent out the rooms. I advertise on 2 websites that are international.
I received an email from a lady claiming she was working in spain on business but was shortly moving to the UK and that my property suited her needs. She was anxious to send me some rent to ensure i held the room for her but also outlined that she would have to send some additional funds which i would then have to send back to her "shipper" so that he could use these funds to organise the movment of her luggage. Several emails followed and then a cheque landed on my door step and i was astounded that it was for £3500. My rent advance was for £800. I cashed the cheque in straight away as the lady seemed anxious that i send her shipper the excess money (£2700) via western union asap.
I specifically asked the cashier when the funds would be available. I paid the money in at 2pm on Tuesday and she said i would have to wait 4 working days for it to clear (wed, thur, fri, mon).
On monday morning i checked my bank account on line to find that the cheque had been credited to my account. As a result i went to the bank at about 1pm that day and withdrew £2700 in cash. The cashier made no comments about there being any issues with the cheque. The funds were definitely available as my overdraft is only for £1500 and i wouldn't have been able to withdraw the cash if the cheque hadn't cleared.
I then went along to my local western union and filled in the paperwork. I had never done this before and only checked as i was filling in the paperwork where i was meant to be sending the cash to: Nigeria.

I can see you all cringing whilst reading this!

The money was handed over and i thought nothing more about the situation until the Tuesday evening when i got home from work to find a letter on the floor saying that the cheque was fraudulent and as a result the bank and taken the £3500 back into their possession.

So now i find myself in the position where some guy in Nigeria has £2700 of my cash and my bank has taken the £3500 back out of my account. The bank is saying it is my issue and not theirs and the fraud department has closed my case because they haven't lost any money and are happy now they have my police crime number. I am way over my overdraft limit now and obviously this will be affecting my credit rating.

Western union are investigating where the money was picked up and the identification of the man - but they think it will most likely be fake and lead to nothing.

The police haven't provided me with any guidance about what i can do or what they can do to support me in getting the money back.

I can pay off this £2700 through my hard earned savings and may do in the next week to ensure my credit rating isn't affected any more but i fundamentally believe there must be something i can do to get the money back. How can the bank claim no responsibility when they made the funds available to me by clearing the cheque?

What should i do? Please advise

soolin

This is the most common scam going at the moment and whilst i realise it is of no help to you it has bene featured on BBC Watchdog and in all the National Papers. If you do a Google search for 'cheque overpayment scam' you will find more info and possibly some tips to work out what to do next.

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/overpayment-scam.html

However, the bank has no responsibility as a cheque may be cleared for funds, ie to draw against, but does not clear against fraud for much much longer. They merely bounced the cheque and reversed the payment.

There is also another problem in that this can be deemed money laundering, the last time I saw this mentioned on MSE the poor victim had her accounts frozen pending investigation by the fraud department.

I'm sorry but I am totally at a loss to suggest any course of action for you, I just hope that someone else can offer some advice.

Soo

Voyager2002

All I can advise is that you ask the bank to be lenient about fees for exceeding your overdraft limit and interest, and that you pay off the overdraft as quickly as possible (from a savings account, if you have that much available). The money is lost.

xzibit

This is the oldest scam in the book! You should always be suspicious if somebody wants to send you more money than you're asking for and to forward more on! I know this isn't any help to you now.
I don't think there is anything you can do. The Nigerians will be untraceable they would have set the accounts up in false names and addresses.

Maybe a little bit of satisfaction can be got from reading https://www.419eater.com

hollydays

xzibit wrote:

This is the oldest scam in the book! You should always be suspicious if somebody wants to send you more money than you're asking for and to forward more on! I know this isn't any help to you now.
I don't think there is anything you can do. The Nigerians will be untraceable they would have set the accounts up in false names and addresses.

Maybe a little bit of satisfaction can be got from reading https://www.419eater.com

Well if this was me,this would not help matters at all.

Tomthumb

Hi, really sorry to hear you've been scammed. I have a Hotel and have myself recently received an email similar to yours - I fortunately had heard of this before so just emailed back that I had no availability. If you are in an area where there is a hotel/guesthouse association can you make sure that the local Hoteliers are made aware of this as I would hate to see more people conned in this way.

I can't offer any advice I'm afraid just my sympathies :sad:

advent1122

Do a google search for nigeria western union.
Scary aint it.
Did you not question why she could not send her "shipper" a cheque for £2,700 and you a cheque for the rent?
Did you not do a tiny bit of research before you sent a total stranger £2,700.
I am sorry, but to put it bluntly, you will never see that money again and cannot do anything about it.

raptorman

From reading your OP I get the impression that you had an idea something was wrong when you realised that you were sending the £2700 to Nigeria. At that point why did you not stop the transfer?

As for what you can do I'm afraid there is nothing you can do. The money is gone and you will never see it again.

I only hope others will learn from this. As mentioned above, if you recieve more money than you were expecting and the sender mentions Western Union stay well clear.

If you see the words Western Union or Nigeria in an email do not I repeat DO NOT respond, it's a SCAM.

i_love_it

is this post real?

soolin

i_love_it wrote:

is this post real?

Actually.....you might be on to something, the OP is almost word perfect for the way the scam works from the warning sites. Oh well, I suppose it never hurts for us all to remind ourselves that these scams are still out there and maybe someone will read this thread who genuinely might never have come across this scam before.

Soo

aj3001

sian_aiken wrote:

I can see you all cringing whilst reading this!

You know whats going on and I don't believe you fell for this, so what? Scammer doing some recon work?