Advance-Fee Fraud: Costly Compassion

Advance-fee fraud has been around for decades, but now seems to have reached epidemic proportions.  Consumers are receiving dozens of offers a day from supposed “Political Delegates” and/or “Business Professionals” politely promising big profits in exchange for help moving large sums of money out of their country.  Advance-fee fraud, in its simplest form, consists of a “Regular person” sending an email to complete a buyer transaction with an unsuspecting seller.  Many compassionate consumers are continuing to fall for the convincing sob stories, the unfailingly polite language, and the unequivocal promises of money. These advance-fee solicitations are scams.

Here's the play book:

1. Claiming to be Nigerian officials, businesspeople or the surviving spouses of former government honchos, con artists offer to transfer millions of dollars into your bank account in exchange for a small fee. If you respond to the initial offer, you may receive "official looking" documents. Typically, you're then asked to provide blank letterhead and your bank account numbers, as well as some money to cover transaction and transfer costs and attorney's fees.
   You may even be encouraged to travel to Nigeria or a border country to complete the transaction. Sometimes, the fraudsters will produce trunks of dyed or stamped money to verify their claims. Inevitably, though, emergencies come up, requiring more of your money and delaying the "transfer" of funds to your account; in the end, there aren't any profits for you to share, and the scam artist has vanished with your money.
   
   
2. Claiming to want to purchase an item you have for sale or rent an apartment from you that you have posted on an internet buy and sell site (i.e. Kijiji), con artists offer to buy your item but when they send you the cheque, they invariably send you too much.  They claim that they sent the amount in error and ask that you transfer the overage to them and keep an extra little bit for yourself , for your troubles.  In the end, they don’t buy what you’re selling, their cheque doesn’t clear and you are out the funds that you sent back to them. 

If You Receive an Offer
If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of Nigeria or other country and if you're tempted to respond to that offer, stop and ask yourself two important questions: Why would a perfect stranger pick you — also a perfect stranger — to share a fortune with, and why would you share your personal or business information, including your bank account numbers or your company letterhead, with someone you don't know? 
If you are selling an item on the internet and receive a cheque in an amount other than the amount you were selling the item for, send it back and ask for a Money order or Draft in the correct amount.  Do not fall victim, no matter how polite, nice or convincing the buyer sounds.

If You Think You may have Fallen for an Advance Fee Scam
Please do not hesitate to call the credit union at any time to discuss questions or concerns you may have in regards to an offer you’ve received.