Monday, June 20, 2011

No easy money



Maybe because of the tough economy people are more prone to this nonsense, or maybe because greed has been around since man (and woman in heels) first started to walk uprite it will always be around.

These days scamers have embraced the Internet, since email fishing is free.

Amherst PD witnessed two instances over the weekend of this pernicious, prevalent crime--the first where a reporting party simply came into the station to report receiving a fictitious check via the (snail)mail where the unknown party asked him to cash it, send back half and keep half for his trouble. The individual was smart enough to know it was a hoax.

The second incident went a tad further: A bank manager at Northampton Cooperative Bank wanted to have an officer investigate a "possible larceny of funds". A gullible customer had deposited a $4,000 check that proved fraudulent and then withdrew $1,500 cash after responding to a Craigslist job ad for shipping packages.

The individual is returning the cash today, having learned a valuable lesson for free: If it sounds to good to be true, then it's almost certainly a scam.

My previous report

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Never ceases to amaze me how gullible/stupid some people are.