Last Updated on by SCARS Editorial Team
ScamsScams A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost. Come In Many Flavors
This One Involves You Depositing Checks For Scammers
You got a contact through social media, or received an email? Maybe you fell in love with someone online? Whatever way they got to you, the wonderful, trustworthy person you are talking to just needs a small favor! Just a little thing. You would surely do this for them, right?
Someone the new person knows or is in business with owes them some money for whatever reason. Whatever the reason, it will be a good story, full of details. What the details are don’t matter, there are a million variations, but it all comes down to the same thing.
The other somebody is willing to send a check, but oh no! Your friend doesn’t have a way to cash the check! Maybe you could do it for them?
So you friend will arrange for the check to be sent to you. You just need to deposit in your bank account for them, or if you don’t have an account you will need to open one.
Once you have deposited the check in your account, you can take the money out and send it to your new friend.
Maybe they will even send a couple of checks, or a few only a few days apart.
You are so willing to help your new friend, because you just know they can be trusted! You send them the money by Western Union, MoneyGram, or some other way where you pay cash or have it debited from your bank account. Maybe you send it to them on your Credit Card, because you know the check is good and you will be repaid.
Except for one small problem …
The check is FAKE!
Now your bank account is overdrawn – disastrously.
Worse you took the money out. Now you have a giant hole in your bank, everything you need to live on is at risk. Maybe you are now totally broke!
You sent the money to your wonderful new friend who said everything was going to be great!
You ask your new friend about it and they have a perfect excuse, it must be something simple. They will send you another check to replace it.
You get the new check and deposit it.
Oops! It’s made of rubber again. And your bank charges you even more fees, maybe they even close your account for bad checks.
You plead with your new friend, you ask what could have happened. Your friend blames it on the other person that sent the check to you. Your friend says you should talk tot hem to get your money.
Only problem is that the person that sent the check can’t be reached. Then your friend is angry with you for bothering them when it is all your fault (or some other equally wonderful reaction).
You still don’t quite understand what happened, but you know something is wrong. You call your bank and they are not very helpful – they say you are responsible for the negative balance and the fees, but they suggest that you call the police if it is as you say.
You call the police and they tell you it was all a scamScam A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime - is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost.. You are devastated. How could your perfect new friend do this to you?
No you have to face the reality: you are out hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of YOUR money. You have a fake check, and NO ONE is going to get your money back.
If you are lucky and the check came from an address within your country, the police will have someone to go after, but they are very busy and this is a non-violent crime. They will call you when they have news. In the mean time the bank has to be paid back.
What you have just read goes on every single day, in fact hundreds of times a day.
Were you stupid to have trusted your new friend? Yes you were, and now you have to pay for it. However, you will get past it. You are still alive, you have your real family and friends.
Yes you should have know better. Didn’t your parents warn you about talking to strangers?
BUT now you have learned an important lesson about safety online. A costly lesson to be sure. You paid the price. You were dumb. Are you going to stay dumb?
We sincerely hope not, because you have a debt now to be repaid. The debt is to yourself.
You were foolish, but you learned the hard way, and you are stronger now because of it. So what are you going to do now?
You are going to go through a variety of stages as you recover from this. They will be hard, but you are now stronger and smarter because of it.
Recovery starts with admitting what you did, and making a commitment to never let it happen again.
Sounds simple, but it’s not. You need help and support. You will probably be like most victims – family and real friends have a hard time understanding how you could do this to yourself.
We understand!
Your first step is to join a group that understand what you went through, because everyone in it has been the victim of a scammerScammer A Scammer or Fraudster is someone that engages in deception to obtain money or achieve another objective. They are criminals that attempt to deceive a victim into sending more or performing some other activity that benefits the scammer. too!
Go Here and Begin Healing: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RomanceVictimsGroup
Being a victim of an online scam is not much fun, it always costs you something. Money, or time, or your heart. You always come out scarred.
But you can get even, at least a little bit. You need to do a few things, and these are positive steps that will help you begin to move on.
Start with sharing and getting the support of others (as we said above).
The report everything to us, we publish it and help others avoid becoming victims.
If we have enough information, we can hurt the scammers in the thing they care about most – the money! Who knows we might even convince local authorities to arrest them. However, it starts with your report to us here: http://www.romancescamsnow.com/how-to-report-scammers-fraudsters/report-scammers-here/
If you have been through this, we sincerely wish you the best.
If you have not, now you know!
SCARS Editorial Team
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