[lace-chat] Scams

[Jean Nathan]

One of DH's "women" in the US was desparate for a job and couldn't find one 
due to her age. She saw an advert somewhere or got an email - I don't know 
the details - but she thought she was acting as a collecting agent for a 
company in France. She was sent a cheque, paid it into her bank account, 
drew the money in cash, less 10% handing fee which was her commission, and 
forwarded the cash by Western Union to an address in Scotland. Don't know 
why she didn't have alarm bells ringing at least with the such a roundabout 
route being involved, let alone anything else.

Anyway, the cheque she deposited for over $2,000 bounced - why did the bank 
let her have the cash before the cheque had cleared? She got left with an 
overdraft of $2,300 and no way of paying it back out of her Social Security 
cheque. She was suicidal because the bank said they'd take the whole of her 
cheque every monmth, meaning she had no money for food, rent or anything 
else, but it's turned out OK. After the bank first not wanting to know 
anything about heping her, the FBI and police have been involved in trying 
to track the source of the scam as she wasn't the on;ly one who fell for 
it - not that there's anything they can do about it because it came from 
outside the US - and the bank have put the overdraft in a separate account. 
Her Social Seciruty is being paid directly into another account and the bank 
is taking $10 a month to pay the overdraft off and not charging interest - 
she's really grateful for that.

There are some very nasty people about.
Jean in Poole 

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