As you may have heard, scams on the elderly are on the rise. The FTC reports that there is a resurgence of a long-standing scam that combines fake checks with secret shopping.
Says Emma Fletcher of the FTC’s Division of Consumer and Business Education:
“We’ve been hearing a lot about it lately. Here’s how it starts. You get a check in the mail with a job offer as a secret shopper. You deposit the check and see the funds in your account a few days later, and the bank even tells you the check has cleared.”
“Now you’re off to the store you’ve been asked to shop at and report back on, often a Walmart. Your first assignment is to test the in-store money transfer service, like Western Union or MoneyGram, by sending some of the money you deposited. Or you might be told to use the money to buy reloadable cards or gift cards, such as iTunes cards. You’re instructed to send pictures of the cards or to give the numbers on the cards.
“Fast-forward days or weeks to the unhappy ending. The bank finds out the check you deposited is a fake, which means you’re on the hook for all that money.
“By the time you try to get the money back from the money transfer service, the scammers are long gone, and they’ve taken all the money off the gift cards, too”
She goes on to say, “If anyone ever asks you to deposit a check and then wire or send money in any way, you can bet it’s a scam.”
The Justice Department estimates that $3 billion is stolen from seniors each year! Always be weary when an offer is too good to be true.
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