Just won the lottery? maybe not.

[Al Willits]

fwiw, I'd be careful of the letters you, or your friends/relatives get that say you won anything.
My wife works as a personal banker, and she mentioned this morning that people pulling the check scam where you get a check from someone and cash it, and send them back a certain amount, or you need to send them money to receive your winnings is now estimated to be in the millions of fraudulent cases.
No scientific count, but she has talked to both the Feds and many major banking systems and this number comes up repeatably.

Seems to be affecting lower income or less educated/mentally handicapped people a lot, please watch out and maybe help those who don't understand this is probably bogus.

I think this has been mentioned before, but the numbers seem to be rising and I thought I'd mention it again.

Al

[David G Baker]

Al,
I have never received one of the lottery letters and have always wanted to get two at the same time then swap the checks and return them to the senders. I have read stories on the Internet where people have seriously scammed the scammers (are those words in the English language?). The stories can be very entertaining.
The lottery scam shows up on our local news program at least once a month here in Michigan.
David B

[Jeff Kerr]

Very similae here. I have a friend who put up something on Craigslist for sale. out of nowhere he gets a check in the mail for thousands of dollars. The letter tells him to cash it, keep like$7k for your trouble and mail the rest out of the country.

he followed up with authorities and found that the check was real, had been washed so that it could be used again.

Gotta be careful.

One thing I have stopped doing is placing outbound bills in my mailbox for the postal carrier to pick up. very easy for someone to steal the checks and make off with the money. All they have to do is soak the checks in a solvent that removes the handwriting but not the check ink and they can make the check out to anyone.

I try to pay all bills online when I can.

[Joe Pelonio]

I get those and other scams regularly. While selling a car I got them a lot more often. They seem to target people with ads on Craigslist, and small businesses with websites most often. Just this morning I had one where a bannister in the UK said I was heir to a 30 million $ estate.

It amazes me that people still fall for these scams. The Nigerian ones started by fax and internet over 10 years ago, you'd almost have to live under a rock to not know about them.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I'm getting old because some of the old sayings seem to become truer every day!.............Folks if something appears to be good to be true....IT PROBABLY IS!

[Dennis Peacock]

I'm getting old because some of the old sayings seem to become truer every day!.............Folks if something appears to be good to be true....IT PROBABLY IS!

How about - If it appears to be too good to be true - It IS!!!!!!

Lottery? We don't have one and can't buy a ticket. Living where there are no lotteries has it's benefits. :)

[Randal Stevenson]

Over on Groklaw there was a post last year, about a Lawyer, who got one of those inheritence letters. She paid the million dollar tax, out of the big law firms budget, expecting to put it back in less then a week.


So it's not all uneducated people, I think commen sense plays a big part.


As for check washing, the local police did a special with the local news, Gel pen's are the hardest to wash out, and what they recommend (they said blue was the toughest).

They also made some recommendations on the checks. I believe the cheapest safety checks actually were one of the better ones.

[jeremy levine]

When I was doing System/Network management I once called the Secret Service because of the number of Nigerian 419 scam messages we we getting. They said "yea we're getting them also".

The moral - The scammers have no shame and no fear.

[Scott Loven]

Over on Groklaw there was a post last year, about a Lawyer, who got one of those inheritence letters. She paid the million dollar tax, out of the big law firms budget, expecting to put it back in less then a week.


So it's not all uneducated people, I think commen sense plays a big part.


As for check washing, the local police did a special with the local news, Gel pen's are the hardest to wash out, and what they recommend (they said blue was the toughest).

They also made some recommendations on the checks. I believe the cheapest safety checks actually were one of the better ones.
Thats why I always use a pencil to sign my checks!