ScamVictimsUnited.com

So I just bought my own house…and was looking for a roommate. Desperate I started to look online and got this email

I exchanged phone numbers with her and IM information but not address as I did not trust her just yet. She called me and her English was rather broken from someone from the UK but she claimed she was ½ Asian, so I figured she may in fact have broken English.

As I got “to know her” on IM her English was even worse. Someone who has been studying for as long as she has…it just did not seem to add up. They were not even grammar errors, but word replacements

“here” instead of “hair”
“sud” instead of “should”

She asked me if she could have the room as I was taking so long to give her a real answer. I finally told her if she would send me the first months rent, I would give her the room.

Long story short, she said her father would be sending me the payment in traveler’s checks, and they came yesterday in the mail. 3 500$ checks. I asked her why she sent so much…I only was going to charge 450$ a month for the room. She explained that her father sent that much so she could have spending money.

Later yesterday night she said that I would need to send her back 1,000 as she needed it to send over furniture and things of that nature

At this point I thought it was somewhat fishy so I took the checks to the bank and asked if they were real. The bank said they were not, and called the police…reported it to their LP, and gave me copies of the checks, but said they could not give back the real checks. I was fine with that as I was not out any money.

I have all her emails she send me, the phone number she said to call her with (could be fake I’m sure) and her yahoo name

The LP dept already has the checks that they are sending to NY (for Visa to look at) Is there anything else I should do?

If you want to post any additional information about the scammer (email or phone numbers that they gave you) then when others google that information they might find you post and be saved from being scammed.



BTW . . . the largest amount that they make traveler's checks in is $100, so that is the dead giveaway that they are fake.

Traveler's cheques come in amounts up to $1000, the cheques that only come in $100 denominations is GIFT cheques.

cynthiamattins_32 is her yahoo SN

Traveler's cheques are available in several currencies such as U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, and euro; denominations usually being 20, 50, or 100 of whatever currency

And right from http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cd ... 416,00.asp
Fraud warnings/red flags
You are asked to cash or accept Cheques in denominations of $500 or $1000. The maximum denomination of an authentic Gift Cheque is $100, so any Gift Cheque with a denomination of more than $100 is a fake.

Shawn,

Gift Cheques are different than travelers checks.

I thought that was what I said.

I see hundreds of Traveler's Cheques everyday in the $500 and $1000 denomination. They are genuine.

It is what you said. I also noticed that on the AMEX website they only let you order $1000 worth of travelers checks at a time to avoid fraud so I am sure they don't make a whole lot of $1000 travelers checks.

Yes, I know that they are different . . . but only because of learning what I have learned from being in the scam fighting loop . . . as an "average american" I might interchange the terms travlers checks and gift checks, but the point I was trying to make was that even when you go to the AmerEX site to read THEIR info on Travler's checks they point out one of the red flag warnings as

if you are asked to cash or accept Cheques in denominations of $500 or $1000.